So I’ve just gotten back from my first round of fieldwork, and am about to go back again. One of the wonders of doing fieldwork now is that there are a host of apps to help you organize, plan and carry out your research. While I used many of the same apps I do everyday at home, such as Evernote and Dropbox, I found two apps to be particularly useful in the field- MaxQDA and Day One Journal. Continue reading →
(Originally posted on my old blog on Jan 9, 2014)
(Originally posted on my old blog on Dec. 9, 2013)
I’ve had several colleagues ask about using content analysis, so I’ve decided to put together a list of links and other resources in one spot.
A word on the qual vs. quant divide. Basically, when it comes to text as data, for me, your research goals define your methods. Sometimes, you are just not going to be able to answer your question without human coding. On the other hand, if you’re analyzing massive amounts of text, unless your research budget is equal to God’s, you aren’t going to be able to deal with it except through automating the coding process. But that said, even after hand coding, I still use quantitative methods to compare validity and see if the difference in categories between documents is statistically significant. The divide between the two is much blurrier here, although it does still play an role in how you define your data and what you see as “valid” coding methods. Continue reading →
(Originally posted on my old blog on Nov 27, 2013)
Here’s a quick video starting John Cleese where he tries to sell UK voters on switching to a proportional representation system (spoiler alert: he fails). It covers the basics of how a system would work. While it’s rather old school, it still provides a very basic introduction to what this whole PR thing is about.