Content Analysis Guidelines

Research Design:
In a content analysis, you might be categorizing the content of a narrative or of a media, web,
archival or aesthetic object. An example could be a content analysis of the frequency & quality of
depictions of mental illness in popular culture, in film or television: you might wish to evaluate the
accuracy of such depictions; the presence of violence in the character who is depicted as mentally ill;
the SES, gender, culture & ethnic background of the character; the character's actions, & the outcome
of the character's actions. Content analysis can also be done of art & of narratives. In past research it
has been done to classify & analyze the content of dreams, imagery, fiction & art. For example,
researchers analyzed the depictions of female characters in children's literature, & noted female
characters were less frequent than male characters, & were depicted with sex-role stereotyped
characteristics (e.g. being emotional or nurturing) & in sex-role stereotyped occupations of relatively
less power (e.g. as nurses or homemakers).

Data collection:
Before conducting your content analysis, you should have prepared a checklist or coding
sheet ahead of time. An easy way to do this is to first do a practice session to view the art or film/tv
show, or read the narrative. List categories of the content within your topic as they occur in your data.
For a general content analysis, you could use Hall & van de Castle's categories (used to analyze
narrative self-reports of dreams). The general classes include characters, relationship references,
objects, activities, events, places, & time. You might also code the content with respect to the overall
quality of the experience, including valence (emotional tone), whether it is a memory/current
concern/future extrapolation, whether it is realistic or fantastical, & whether it is tied to the immediate
situation/reactive to the situation/irrelevant to it. For example, in terms of valence or emotional tone,
artistic content or a respondent's protocol would be coded as negative in tone or valence if more than
50% of the references were negative in tone, or if the main or important references were negative
when positive references occurred but were clearly secondary. If the protocol was a mixture of both
qualities in the pair, both should be noted as present.
For a specific topic, you will need to narrow down the list of all possible categories & qualities
to only record the ones relevant to your topic. For example, in your content analysis of depictions of
mental illness in tv & film, you might note categories & qualities of:
a) the character - gender, age, SES, relationship with other characters (stranger, family, friend,
subordinate vs superior, etc.).
b) the character's life circumstances - e.g. homeless or hospitalized, married or single,
occupationally successful & functional, etc.
c) the character's actions in the story - e.g. aggressive & violent, submissive & helpless, etc.
d) the character's diagnosis (mental illness) - its symptomology, intensity or degree, the accuracy
of the depiction of its symptoms.
e) the situation - danger or threat, etc. Note the outcome of the situation for the mentally ill
character.
f) the type of story (if applicable & relevant) - e.g. comedy, romance, police drama, thriller,
horror.
Other kinds of content analysis would call for other types of categories. For example, an
analysis of the characters in a Disney movie would probably include categories a to c above, & other
categories as well (for example gender role stereotyping rather than character diagnosis).
Having identified the content categories you will be coding, prepare a checklist based on your practice
session. Your checklist should have room in each cell for comments. Make sure you include space for
additional categories, as they occur during your observation.
Then carry out your observation of the film/t.v show or art, or read the narrative, newspaper or
document that you are analyzing, making note of occurrences of the categories on your checklist as
they occur.
Data analysis:
The first step is to code the data. Having checked the occurrences in your checklist, categorize
them further if you need to, & count each subcategory.
Then you may be able to do descriptive statistics, presenting means, for example, in a table of
the content. If you have taken Statistics, you could do a Chi 2of the frequencies of the categories or
an ANOVA if you are comparing differences. (With the help of Excel these statistics are easy to do).

Presentation of your results:

Use the standard APA style lab report format. In the Introduction, briefly review past research
& theory in your topic question (e.g. summarize current research or debate on your topic - on
depictions of the mentally ill, for example). Use APA referencing style to cite your sources. The
Method section would vary according to the content you are analyzing. If you are analyzing
participants' dreams or imagery or art, you would have a Participants section to describe their number,
gender, age, etc. Otherwise, if you are simply analyzing the content of aesthetic products like film,
television shows, or books, you may only have Materials & Procedure, since you don't have any
participants. In the Materials section, list the content you have analysed, the fiction, film, etc. you may
have used. In the Procedure section, note that your general research strategy was a content analysis,
& describe your methods of data collection.
In the Results section of the report, present your results in both a table (which would present
the frequencies of each type of content) & in words. If you have done a statistical analysis, present
those results as well.
In the Discussion section, relate your results to past or current research & theory you had cited
& described in the Introduction. For example, you could compare the percentage of occurrences of
violence in mentally ill characters in the t.v shows you analyzed to the true percentage of violence in
mentally ill individuals, according to the research literature in Psychology. You would also discuss the
accuracy or inaccuracy of the depictions of the mentally ill in popular culture from your findings, &
relate your findings to discussions among other sources (such as your text) of the possible effects of
these inaccurate & extreme portrayals.

© Janet Waters
https://www.capilanou.ca/programs-courses/psychology/student- resources/research-guidelines/Content-
Analysis- Guidelines/#sthash.diLeXIwi.dpuf

Interview Guidelines
Dr. Janet Waters

Planning the Interview:

Choose a topic for your interview. Before you begin drafting your questions, research your
topic (e.g. read the chapter in the text which discusses this topic). Check your text web site for some
suggestions for topics & questions. The first thing you must do is to determine the research question -
what is it you wish to know? Keep your topic in mind while you are drafting your interview questions to
make sure your interview questions are relevant to it. Also, check your audio/video equipment to
make sure it works properly. Choose a location for the interview that is quiet & won't be over-heard or
interrupted.
Drafting your Interview Questions: Some guidelines for interview questions:
Start with a brief introduction: Briefly introduce your topic & who you are, but avoid overly directing
your subjects' answers. You may ask demographic questions (gender, age, etc.) at this time.
Your questions should be clear, understandable, & inoffensive: Make sure your interview
questions are clear, that they ask what you mean them to ask, & are unlikely to be misunderstood.
Also, ensure that they are unbiased & not offensive in their language, & are understandable (not too
technical, difficult, or unfamiliar).
 Ask follow-up or probing questions: Be prepared to follow up on vague or incomplete answers
with further probing questions like "Can you tell me more about that?" However, avoid overly specific
follow up questions that might tell the participant what you are looking for (for example, you could ask:
"Could you tell me more about the changes you mentioned in arguments in the family?" rather than
"Have you found the arguments with your adolescent have increased & become more distressing?"
Don't be too obvious: Carefully word your questions to be as innocuous & unthreatening as possible,
& try not to "lead" your subjects to the answers you are looking for. This is particularly important when
your topic is a sensitive one, which subjects may find embarrassing, or one which they are likely to be
dishonest about.
Check the order of your questions: It is often a good idea to ask the most important &
interesting questions first (before the subject gets too bored or impatient with the interview). However,
you might instead wish to lead the participant to sensitive or important questions more gradually; if so,
begin with background questions.
Keep the interview fairly brief: For the lab assignments, I have requested about 45 minutes.
Some topics, however, will need more time - if you are interviewing parents or children about their
moral reasoning, for example, you may need to take longer.
Pretest your interview questions: After you've constructed a draft of the interview questions, it's often
a good idea to pretest the questions with a willing participant, & ask for his/her feedback about their
understanding of the questions, etc.

During your interview:

With all your equipment pretested & ready, you can set up & begin the interview with a
minimum of disruptive fuss. Some participants are nervous to be audio or videotaped, so you want to
minimize their focus on the taping. If the participant doesn't want to be taped, take very good notes as
you go. Even if you are also audio/video recording the interview, always take notes in any case, as
equipment does fail or break down. These notes can be expanded on after the interview, while your
memory is still fresh.
When interviewing adults, try not to subtly bias the respondent's answers by inadvertently
showing approval or disapproval of certain answers, or by hinting in any way at the answer you are
expecting. With children it is often a good idea to express an appreciation of any answer you obtain. If
you are interviewing more than one participant, make sure your introduction & questions are similar
each time.
Remember to thank the participant for their time & trouble!

Analyzing the Interview:

Once you have your completed interviews, you will have to make some sense of your data, &
present a summary of your results in the Results section of your Research Report. The actual
interview transcript (or notes) would not be given in the Results section; you should attach the
transcript of the interview to the report as an Appendix. In your Results section would be a summary
of the interview findings concerning the topic question. Use direct quotes from the interviews only as
examples, where necessary to support your analysis or illustrate your point.
Your results can sometimes be presented in the form of a table, with frequencies. For
example, if you are interviewing children in various Piagetian stages about their concepts of God, you
could make a table of the stages & concepts. After interviewing children & their parents about why,
how, & how often they are punished, you could easily convert these answers to frequencies of types
of transgressions & punishments, & frequency of punishment, by gender & age.
A table is not always possible. Alternatively, you could summarize your findings from the
interview into a ~ 2 page summary. Do analyze the meaning of the interview findings (e.g. which stage
of moral reasoning was displayed in Participant #1's answer to the Heinz question) in the Results
section, but save your discussion of these findings for the Discussion section.
Presenting & Discussing your Interview Results:
The standard APA style lab report would be used to present the results of your interview. In
the Introduction, briefly review past research & theory in your topic question (summarize current
research on your topic of family arguments & relations with adolescent children). Use APA referencing
style to cite your sources. In the Method section, under Participants, present a general description of
the participant you interviewed (age, gender, etc.). In the Materials section, describe any
materials you may have used, & in the Procedure section, describe your general research
strategy (for example, you interview could have collected data for a case study, or for a
phenomenological study) & describe your methods of data collection (which would be the interview).
In the Results section of the report, present your 2-4 page summary of the interview findings, as noted
above. No citations would occur here, since you are describing your results.
Finally, in the Discussion section, integrate your interview findings to theory & past research
findings in your topic. Relate your interview findings to what you have learned from the text about that
topic. For example, you could compare your adolescent participants' reports about the frequency &
content of their arguments with their parents, to what research in the text found. If your findings
contradict current research or theory, or if you observed something unusual or unexpected, you could
suggest reasons why your observations may differ from the expected findings.
Use APA referencing style to cite your sources. Do finish the Discussion section
with a note on the limitations of your study in terms of generalizability.

© Janet Waters
https://www.capilanou.ca/programs-courses/psychology/student- resources/research-guidelines/Interview-
Guidelines/#sthash.VKYmlzKN.dpuf

Observation Guidelines
Observational Research

Planning the Observation:

Plan as much as you can before you begin your observation. Choose the age group, (e.g. a
particular child, adolescent or adult), or a behaviour setting (e.g. a playground, school or home). Then
choose a topic which you wish to observe. Before the observation, read about the topic you are
studying (the applicable chapter in your text), & plan your observations. Think about the behaviours
you will be looking for that are within your topic area. You may wish to prepare a checklist of target
behaviours within your topic in advance. (Make sure you leave a column titled "misc" for behaviours
you hadn't anticipated). Also, check that your audio/video recorder, if you will be allowed to use one, is
working properly.

Guidelines for Conducting the Observation: Some guidelines for carrying out an observation:
• Be unobtrusive: Because people behave differently in the presence of others (the Hawthorne
effect), it's important to make sure your participants don't notice you. If observing children, &
you can't remain unseen, you may wish to spend some time before the observation sitting
quietly in a corner to allow the children to get used to your presence. (If a child tries to engage
you in conversation, you could explain you are doing some work, & can't play or talk now).
• Be objective: Your language should be clear, accurate, & formal. Focus on the behaviour, not
on your interpretation of it. Keep your language objective, avoid hyperbole or descriptive
language, which may exaggerate the behaviour or mislead the reader. For example, "the kids
were bouncing off the walls" would be overly descriptive, as well as vague. A better description
would be: "The children were excited; two boys were energetically chasing each other, while
two of the other children were wrestling and shouting."
• Be specific: Your observations should describe behaviour as specifically as possible.
Generalities are vague & don't give a clear picture. For example, an observation that "the five
children were each engaged in gender biased behaviour" is too general, it doesn't specifically
 identify what the children were doing. "As the observation began, two of the three girls were
sitting quietly at the crafts table, while the third girl pretended to cook dinner in the play
kitchen. All three boys were building a fort with large wooden blocks." This gives a more
accurate picture to your reader of the specific behaviours you are typing as "gender-biased".
• Be scientific: Your observations should be accurate; they should be thorough & complete; &
should include nothing but your observations. (That is, unless you observed it, avoid
speculations about the possible sugar consumption that may have preceded the children's
excitement).

Beginning the Observation:

As you begin your observation, record the following:
• Setting: Describe the setting (e.g. in the kitchen of the child's home)and the context. Indicate
roughly what the setting was like, size, facilities, number of people. In other words, include
anything that might have an influence on the behaviour you are going to observe.
• On-going Action: Indicate what is happening, & who is involved in the action at the time you
begin your observation.
• Description of the child: Describe the child or children, indicating their number, age and
gender, & any notable features (e.g. disabilities). You will include the description of your
setting & your participants in the Method section of the research report.

During your observation:

Record as full a description of the child's or children's behaviour & responses to that behaviour
as possible. It's a good idea to make notes every thirty seconds, even if you are recording with video
or audio equipment. You can use your prepared checklist, or write a narrative of the behaviour - you
can invent your own shorthand for notes during the observation, then expand on your shorthand notes
as you transcribe the notes soon after. Be as thorough & complete as possible.

Analyzing the Observation:

Once you have finished the observation, you will have to make some sense of your data, &
present your results in the Results section of your report. If you had a checklist, you would total the
columns & present the totals for each variable (or type of behaviour) in a table form. You may wish to
convert these totals into percentages in some cases. If you are typing behaviour into a stage or
category according to a theory (e.g. Piaget's cognitive development, or Kohlberg's moral
development), list the behaviours that typify each category or stage, & identify why you think so. Then
present these in a table. If you have a narrative, you would code it for specific behavioural patterns or
themes, total these, & present them in a table.
As an example, you are interested in observing child-initiated interactions with an adult. You
have a good narrative record of your observations of all the child-initiated interactions that took place
within the hour's observation. You could then code your observations according to the following
criteria, then total each type and present in a table:

I: Child Approaches to Adult

a) type of approach: P (physically), V (verbally), O (Other – e.g. body language, eye gaze, etc).
b) content of child's approach: includes the following subcategories: request to adult; question;
wants to show adult something; wants to involve adult in play; expression of emotion or
physical state; aggression; complaint; etc. (List as many types as you find).
c) valence of approach: + (positive), - (negative), n (neutral).
d) intensity of approach: quiet vs loud, etc.

II: Response by Adult to Child:

a) type of response: as above
 b) content of adult response: includes the following subcategories: complies with request; answer
to question; expression of empathy; reprimand/ discipline; etc. (List as many types as you
find).
c) valence of response: + (adult responds verbally, smiles, picks up child, etc.); negative - (adult
refuses child's approach verbally or non-verbally); n (neutral - approach not noticed or
ignored).
d) intensity of response: as above

III: Response by Child to Adult's Response: as above.

Presenting & Discussing your Observations:

The standard APA style research report can be used to present your case study. In the
Introduction, briefly review past research & theory in your topic question (e.g. summarize current
research child/adult interactions). Use APA referencing style to cite your sources. In the
Method section, under Participants, present a general description of the participants you have
observed (age, etc.). In the Materials & Equipment section, describe any materials or equipment you
may have used (e.g. audio or video recorder), & in the Procedure section, describe your general
research strategy (naturalistic observation, or possibly an experiment) & describe your methods of
data collection (observation).
In the Results section of the report, present your 2-4 page summary or analysis of your
observations, as noted above. Generally, avoid excessive interpretation of your observations in the
Results section. Simply present the observations, in a table if possible. No citations would occur here,
since you are describing your results.
Finally, in the Discussion section, you should integrate your results to theory & past research
findings in your topic. Relate your observations to what you have learned from the text about that
topic. For example, you have observed that there were 50% more instances of physical aggression
among the boys than the girls, & 40% more instances of verbal aggression among the girls than the
boys. Explain these findings with reference to research & theory on gender differences in aggression
and verbal behaviour. If your findings contradict current research or theory, or if you observed
something unusual or unexpected, you could suggest reasons why your observations may differ from
the expected findings.

@ Janet Water
https://www.capilanou.ca/programs-courses/psychology/student-resources/research- guidelines/Observation-
Guidelines/#sthash.OgTPvZhl.dpuf