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Find content related to this author. Thematic analysis extracts themes from text by analyzing the word and sentence structure. Qualitative data analysis is the process of examining and interpreting qualitative data to understand what it represents. Qualitative data is defined as any non-numerical and unstructured data; when looking at customer feedback, qualitative data usually refers to any verbatim or text-based feedback such as reviews, open-ended responses in surveys , complaints, chat messages, customer interviews, case notes or social media posts.
For example, NPS metric can be strictly quantitative, but when you ask customers why they gave you a rating a score, you will need qualitative data analysis methods in place to understand the comments that customers leave alongside numerical responses. While manual human analysis is still popular due to its perceived high accuracy, automating the analysis is quickly becoming the preferred choice.
The most commonly used software for automated coding of qualitative data is text analytics software such as Thematic. Coding qualitative data makes it easier to interpret customer feedback.
Assigning codes to words and phrases in each response helps capture what the response is about which, in turn, helps you better analyze and summarize the results of the entire survey.
Researchers use coding and other qualitative data analysis processes to help them make data-driven decisions based on customer feedback. When you use coding to analyze your customer feedback, you can quantify the common themes in customer language. This makes it easier to accurately interpret and analyze customer satisfaction. Methods of coding qualitative data fall into two categories: automated coding and manual coding. You can automate the coding of your qualitative data with thematic analysis software.
Thematic analysis and qualitative data analysis software use machine learning, artificial intelligence AI , and natural language processing NLP to code your qualitative data and break text up into themes. Businesses are also seeing the benefit of using thematic analysis softwares that have the capacity to act as a single data source, helping to break down data silos, unifying data across an organization. This is now being referred to as Unified Data Analytics.
Thematic coding, also called thematic analysis, is a type of qualitative data analysis that finds themes in text by analyzing the meaning of words and sentence structure. When you use thematic coding to analyze customer feedback for example, you can learn which themes are most frequent in feedback. This helps you understand what drives customer satisfaction in an accurate, actionable way. To learn more about how thematic analysis software helps you automate the data coding process, check out this article.
Different researchers have different processes, but manual coding usually looks something like this:. Deductive coding means you start with a predefined set of codes, then assign those codes to the new qualitative data. Deductive coding is also called concept-driven coding. The deductive approach can save time and help guarantee that your areas of interest are coded. But you also need to be careful of bias; when you start with predefined codes, you have a bias as to what the answers will be.
Inductive coding , also called open coding, starts from scratch and creates codes based on the qualitative data itself.
If you add a new code, split an existing code into two, or change the description of a code, make sure to review how this change will affect the coding of all responses.
Otherwise, the same responses at different points in the survey could end up with different codes. Sounds like a lot of work, right? Inductive coding is an iterative process, which means it takes longer and is more thorough than deductive coding. But it also gives you a more complete, unbiased look at the themes throughout your data. Once you create your codes, you need to put them into a coding frame.
A coding frame represents the organizational structure of the themes in your research. There are two types of coding frames: flat and hierarchical. A flat coding frame assigns the same level of specificity and importance to each code. While this might feel like an easier and faster method for manual coding, it can be difficult to organize and navigate the themes and concepts as you create more and more codes.
It also makes it hard to figure out which themes are most important, which can slow down decision making. Hierarchical frames help you organize codes based on how they relate to one another. Hierarchical framing supports a larger code frame and lets you organize codes based on organizational structure.
Make short descriptions of the meaning of each code. What you need to know about your codes Gibbs :. Coding textual information is a complicated cognitive process and the coder is necessarily a significant influence on the coding process.
For each study coding procedures must be carefully planned and a specific coding design and guidelines must be established. Coders must undertake a training, where they are instructed about the specific coding design and coding rules. A part of coding procedures is concerned with reviewing the quality of the coding process. According to Gibbs several techniques to control coder reliability exist:.
Process Qualitative coding. Data Management Expert Guide 1. Plan 2. Store 5. Protect 6.
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