Lesson 8: Coding

The most basic process of the qualitative data-analysis is to code the data. One of the first steps to gather material is, regardless of your preferred methodology, to identify particular segments of textual data (or excerpts of image-data) as an expressive unit as describe above. Then a label is assigned to that unit (the quotation) which might initially only have a paraphrasing-descriptive nature but will result in an elaborate analytical abstraction.

In the GT with which I work myself and also the developers of ATLAS/ti are oriented at, the process of coding is understood as a three-tier approach: open, axial and selective. But let's stick with the rather technical possibilities how to create codes within ATLAS/ti. There are a number of ways: :

3 text independent coding options

Let‘s begin with the three text-independent options in which codes are created but data is not necessarily coded at this time (known as "vacant codes"):

Option a: Create new codes gradually

click the "Create New Item" button in the "Codes" window ð enter a name (not too long otherwise it might become hard to handle!)

You may also create multiple codes at the same time in the same input-dialog. To accomplish this you simply enter a vertical slash after each code-name and write the following code-name directly after that. ("|", Not "/"!)). This option, as with the below outlined alternative of coding, is with a new code via a button in the primary document-window.

Option b: Create a new code-list from the start

Either select the "Create a New Item" button in the code-window (as with Option a) and enter the codes to be created one by one into the code-window OR you may have an existing list in a file to be transferred. This works as follows: create one or two codes as described in Option a ð select the "codes" context-menu through the right mouse-button ð select the "code-list" option from "output" ð name the file with a .COD or .KOD extension and save it ð Then you may load that file with any (always edit and save as an ASCII-file!), if you wish you may copy a list with codes (each code represents a line that must be finished with Enter. Do not go behind the last special-character!) ð save the data ð insert the list into the current code-list through the context-menu „Codes" via Miscellaneous/Import Code List.

HINT: Duplicates are being marked with an exclamation at the beginning of a line. Make sure to always delete the duplicates with an exclamation from the code-list since they do not contain any quotation-references. The evolvement of duplicates may be entirely avoided by initially removing all codes from the ASCII-file that are existing in identical form within the HU.

Option c: Transferring the code-list from another HU

works like Option b. However you need to export the code-list from another HU and then import it into the current HU as described. If required you can edit the exported list with an editor (make additions, thinning, unifying labels etc.)

This procedure allows you to only import rather simple code-lists but not entire tree-structures or semantic networks. Such complex structures may be exported to a file, however re-importing them is not possible. If you intend to import semantic networks please use the „HU-Merging-Tool" (still to be delivered).

4 functions for successive coding

The "create a new Code" function, which may be reached through the green rectangular box, records the highlighted passage as a quotation and at the same time opens a window to enter a new code-name that will be assigned to the newly created quotation. This feature is especially powerful in the first working-stages of open coding. :

In-vivo-codes

The button below offers a special way of coding with a new code, the so-called "In-vivo-coding". It means that a marked text-fragment is being coded with itself (for example: "made me sad" is coded with "made me sad"). This type of coding enjoys a very high rating in the field of qualitative social-research because it deals with codes and concepts closely orienting at the language of the explored everyday world.
A special variation of In-vivo-coding and at the same time an alternative to create a multitude of codes from a primary-text is the following: select any text-passage within the active primary text, drag it with the left mouse button over the code-list and keep the key pressed while you are releasing the left mouse-button. As a result, a code from each word in the text-passage has been generated. If you press the key instead of the key then the text-passage is created as an In-Vivo-Kode, provided that the text-passage is not too long. In both cases the text-passage is also coded with the newly created code.

!Coding with codes from the list

Sometimes you may not only want to create new codes when coding but create new quotations instead and link them to codes that were previously referenced in your code-list. The button below serves exactly this purpose. When clicked, it opens a code-list from which you may select (by clicking with the left mouse button) any number of codes (code by list). Your new quotation is being coded with these codes.

Coding with active code

Finally you may frequently want to assign the same code to a large number of quotations one by one, especially during the phase of axial and selective coding. This is done with the lowest positioned button of the four coding-buttons. You might not see much while this action is in progress but the code is being added to the margin-area and the quotation counter in the code-list for this particular code is incremented by one. These functions are also accessible through a context-menu of a marked text-passage within the PD-window. Additionally, the context-menus of the quotation-list and the code-list provide access to these coding-functions. It depends on the current work-situation and your personal preference whatever method is best to use.

Coding via drag&drop

Finally ATLAS/ti offers another variation of coding, the drag&drop coding: you initially mark a text-passage and then activate a quotation in the code-list and drag it over the marked passage while keeping the left mouse button pressed. This turns the passage into a quotation and after releasing the mouse button, the code is then logically linked to the quotation.