Group: 5

Contents
Group: 5...........................................................................................................................................1

Chapter 5-Going on With Coding....................................................................................................2

Going on with coding......................................................................................................................3

Why bother sorting nodes into trees?..........................................................................................3

Building your coding structure....................................................................................................4

Organizing and coding with nodes in trees in NVivo......................................................................4

Rearranging nodes !.....................................................................................................................4

Create a parent tree node (without coding)..................................................................................4

Moving nodes into trees...............................................................................................................5

Merging nodes.............................................................................................................................5

Coding when nodes are in trees...................................................................................................5

Kinds of trees...............................................................................................................................5

‘Viral’ coding systems.................................................................................................................6

Keeping a record of changes in your journal...............................................................................6

Automating routine coding..............................................................................................................7

Automating coding with word frequency and text search queries..................................................8

Exploratory coding using the word frequency query:.................................................................8

What else can you do with word frequency and text searches?..................................................9

Closeness and distance with coded data........................................................................................10

Moving on......................................................................................................................................10
Chapter 5-Going on With Coding
 Going on with coding

Some nodes are easy to see as one of a larger group (in the park is one of several possible
locations), and some you see as an instance of a more general concept (conflict is one of several
interpersonal issues). It is natural to categorize and organize objects so that the category at the
top of a hierarchy describes the contents, in general terms, of the items below. In NVivo, nodes
can be structured in a branching tree system with categories, subcategories and subcategories.
So, just as folders and subfolders in your computer filing system help you to organize your files,
nodes in ‘trees’ will allow you to organize your categories into conceptual groups and subgroups.

Why bother sorting nodes into trees?

 Organization: The hierarchies help to create order out of randomness or chaos. The logic of
the system means you can find nodes and you can see where to put new nodes.
 Conceptual clarity: Organizing nodes helps to give meaning to them; sorting them into
hierarchies prompts you to clarify your ideas, to identify common properties, see missing
categories, and sort out categories that overlap. And you clearly see what kinds of things
your project is dealing with – the structure of your data.
 Prompt to code richly: Well-organized trees provide a useful tool for ensuring the
thoroughness of your coding, as you progress. You stop to code a passage because an
interesting issue is raised in the data. Capture that, but before you leave the passage, run an
eye over your coding structure as a quick visual prompt to see if there are other nodes that are
relevant.
 Identifying patterns: Identifying patterns of association between groups of nodes can make a
significant contribution to an emergent analysis.
Building your coding structure

To create some conceptual order in your coding system (‘point-and-click’ instructions for
moving nodes around follow):

 Start with a thinking-sorting process, to decide how the nodes might be arranged. When you
ask yourself why you are interested in a particular category or concept (abstracting), ask
yourself also what sort of thing this concept is about – what group it belongs to.
 Decide on what might be top-level nodes in your Nodes area, as needed. You may already
have some nodes which represent broad categories (e.g., emotions, attitudes, environmental
issues) that will be suitable to keep in position as top-level nodes.
 Rearrange your nodes by placing some under others, so that their arrangement makes sense
for you.
 Once you have a structure, check that it serves the main ideas you set out with, and the
research questions you want to answer.

Organizing and coding with nodes in trees in NVivo

Having decided on how your trees are going to be arranged, it is now time to start moving nodes
around. Nodes can be moved, appended, merged and split as needed to create your structured
coding system.

Rearranging nodes !

 Before making drastic changes to your project, be sure to save it. Also, if you haven’t
done so recently, it would be a good idea to make a backup copy of it (File > Manage >
Copy Project).
 Use the strategies outlined above to help you think about how to rearrange and organize
your nodes. Print a list of nodes to help (see Chapter 4), or play with arranging nodes in a
model. ? The most common strategies we use are listed below. Go to Help > Nodes >
Reorder and refine nodes for additional guidance.

Create a parent tree node (without coding)

 In Navigation View, select Nodes, then in List View (in the white space below any existing
nodes): Right-click > New Node.
 Provide a name for the new node (and a description if you want).
Moving nodes into trees

 Nodes can be dragged into a tree, or from one tree to another. Click to select, then click and
drag to the parent node.

Merging nodes

 If you have two nodes which are about the same thing, then Cut the first node (or Copy if you
are anxious), select the second, Right-click > Merge Into Selected Node. Confirm whether
you want all the ticked options to apply, then click on OK. This will place all coded passages
from the first (source) node into the second (target) node (without creating duplicates).
 Open the Node Properties dialogue for the target node (Ctrl+Shift+P) to amend its
description to indicate that another node has been merged with it, for example by adding
‘includes [source node]’.

Coding when nodes are in trees

 To expand your list of nodes: Right-click in List View and select Expand/ Collapse > Expand
All Nodes.
 To use drag-and-drop coding, remember to change the display to Detail View > Right (View
ribbon), and ensure the text of your source cannot be edited. (If you are uncertain, right-click
in the Detail View and see if Edit is illuminated. If it is, select it to turn it off.)

Kinds of trees

The kinds of trees we find turning up again and again in projects involving interviews or
observations with people include (but are far from being limited to) selections from the following
list.

 People or actors or players referred to – people, groups or organizations to whom reference is

made.
 Events – things that happen at a point in time.
 Actions – things that are done at a point in time. These would often be coded also by an actor
node (unless it is an action of the speaker).
 Activities – ongoing actions.
 Context – the settings in which actions, events, etc. occur. This may include branches to
identify phases, stages, timing, location.
 Strategies – purposeful activity to achieve a goal or deal with an issue.
 Issues – matters raised about which there might be some debate.
 Attitudes – listing the nature of the attitude, rather than what the attitude is about or to (this
gets coded separately).
 Beliefs, ideological positions, frameworks – intellectual positions (or discourses) which are
evident in thinking and action.
 Culture – likely to have a number of branches, depending on the type of culture
(organizational, societal, etc.) being considered.
 Emotional responses – feelings.
 Personal characteristics – descriptors applied to people.
 Impact, outcomes (e.g., facilitator/barrier, or help/hinder). In general there should not be
further nodes under these, specifying particular facilitators or barriers; rather the same
passage should also be coded with whatever is acting as the facilitator or barrier.

‘Viral’ coding systems

1. Each category or concept or theme (i.e., each node) should appear in one place only in the
coding system. If nodes are repeated throughout, it not only makes for many more nodes, but
also for difficulty in putting together everything you know about any particular event or
feeling or issue.
2. Keep attribute data that apply to whole cases (such as role or location) separate from the
coding system (see Chapter 3, and more detail in Chapter 6). Comparing data on the basis of
different roles or locations or on the values of any other attribute is achieved with a
straightforward matrix coding query or a framework matrix, whereas, if you use those values
to divide up your coding system, you will not be able to see the comparisons as easily.

Keeping a record of changes in your journal

When you are making significant changes to your coding system, keeping a record of the
changes you are making, and why you are making them, is particularly important. In the process
of making decisions about your tree structure, you will be thinking seriously about the goals of
your project, and the concerns it embraces. Additionally, you will find it valuable to export and
store (dated) lists of nodes at various points during your project. These provide a historical
archive which helps to chart the shifts in and progress of your thinking


 Automating routine coding

A significant amount of what any researcher does is routine work – the ‘dogsbody’ tasks which
are boring but essential to the overall project. Licking stamps and sealing envelopes is one Pat
remembers from her (pre-web) days of running surveys, along with the tedious but essential task
of entering numeric codes into a spreadsheet. Fortunately for researchers and for the progress of
research, technology has come to our aid and machines have taken over some of the drudgery.
Even in qualitative analysis, the researcher can automate some routine coding-related tasks,
giving more time to concentrate on less mechanical, more interpretive work. In NVivo, the auto
code and text search tools are ways to achieve this.

For example, use auto coding to:

 Delineate the contributions of each speaker in a focus group, meeting or multi-person

interview, where speakers are identified by headings, in order to code each speaker’s text to a
case node.

 Identify cases, where each person’s responses to one question have been saved, under their
participant code, in one document.

 Code responses for topic or the question asked, when these are standardized throughout
sources and identified by headings in the text.

 Delineate the components of regularly structured documents, such as submissions or annual

reports.

All passages of normal text to be coded at the same level should be preceded by the same
heading style.

1.Most features that support auto coding, particularly use of heading styles, are less
cumbersome to add when you are preparing your documents, rather than after they are imported.
Once the document has been imported and coded (so that you can’t simply delete, fix and
reimport), the option to use the Edit > Replace function within NVivo to modify the text and
apply styles is available, but is less user-friendly than that in Word.

2.If your project doesn’t have particular features which readily support auto coding (e.g., there
aren’t regularly occurring topics or questions which can be identified by headings), don’t force
the issue by attempting to apply auto coding strategies. It will be more efficient and effective to
code the text interactively.
 Automating coding with word frequency and text search queries

Exploratory coding using the word frequency query:

When hopeful students ask whether NVivo will find themes and analyze their data for them, it is
a text-mining kind of function they are usually thinking about. The word frequency query will
search selected text and identify the (up to 1,000) most frequently used words in that text,
displaying finds as a summary list or tag cloud. Review the list of words found, then follow up
by reviewing particular keywords in their immediate context, or save them as a node. The word
frequency query will find words used in sometimes surprising ways and can be useful for
exploratory work, but it is not a magic alternative to interactive coding.

Coding with text search queries:

The capacity to search through sources and identify passages where a particular word, phrase or
a set of alternative words is used as a pointer to what is said about a topic unquestionably offers
the hint of a ‘quick fix’ to coding, at least where an appropriate keyword can be identified. The
conundrum is that searching text offers much more than that, but also much less.

A text search query will find, in selected sources or in text coded at selected nodes, all instances
of a specified word or phrase or set of alternative words, and save them as a node. As a strategy
for locating, viewing and coding text, a text search can:

1.Code passages based on repetitive features, such as speaker initials appearing at the beginning
of a paragraph. It can, thereby, provide you with an alternative to auto coding based on headings,
although it is much less convenient to run, so if you can auto code using headings, take that
option in preference.

2.Code topics, people, places or groups identified by a keyword, for example, in a tourism
project, identifying passages (paragraphs) about regularly mentioned locations or environmental
features.

What else can you do with word frequency and text searches?

Now you have seen what happens when you ask NVivo to search through your text for a word or
phrase, let’s look at some additional ways you might use this versatile tool. Here are some of
them:

1.You may have a node for Community and you want to know what concerns people have in this
area. You can do a word frequency query in the node for Community (instead of on the original
sources), and do additional coding based on the results.

2.Use word frequency counts to compare the major concerns in published articles, or changes of
emphasis in annual reports.

3.If you become aware of a new issue or topic or your thinking about the project takes a new
direction, quickly explore across your data to see if this is a viable area for deeper investigation.

4.Similarly, in the course of working through a later document you might come upon a new
concept or category that is ‘nodeworthy’, and then wonder whether it was there before, but you
just hadn’t seen it. Use text search to rapidly check whether such things were indeed mentioned
earlier (such a search might be scoped to just the already coded documents).

5.For routine or repetitive coding where there are clear pointers to what needs to be coded (such
as initials at the start of a paragraph, or known keywords in the text, text search can provide a
viable method of locating relevant passages.
 Closeness and distance with coded data

At various stages throughout our project we will benefit from stepping back from the frenetic
pace of working with our data to take stock of our progress, reflectively reviewing what we have
already found, and exploring alternative and further possibilities in preparation for moving
forward again.
It is an exciting process to see our concepts come alive with data! Sometimes we simply want to
check what is there to ensure coding consistency, but it is really beneficial to take time out
occasionally from coding and working with documents to walk through some nodes, clarifying
what they are about and reflecting on what they mean.
Whereas a document memo stores background information and the ideas and thoughts generated
by the particular document or case, a node memo is likely to contain a record of more conceptual
thinking. Checking thoroughness of coding by using a compound query to combine a text search
with a simple coding query, we can check where a word in the text might indicate a potentially
relevant passage that has not already been coded to the appropriate node.

Moving on

Once we have an established coding system, our focus can shift to different ways in which we
can use that coding system to interrogate our data. For that to happen, however, we need to
consider how setting up and using attributes will help – so that is the task we turn to now.