Managerial economics

Sample Answer

The role of a coder in performing a qualitative analysis is absolutely fundamental and goes far beyond simply "tagging" text. It's a highly skilled, iterative, and critical part of making sense of rich, non-numerical data like interview transcripts, focus group discussions, field notes, or open-ended survey responses.

Here's a detailed explanation of a coder's role in performing a qualitative analysis:

1. Understanding the Research Question and Objectives

Before any coding begins, the coder must have a deep understanding of:

• The research question(s): What is the study trying to find out? This helps the coder focus on relevant information.
• The study's objectives: What specific insights or themes are expected or being looked for?
• The theoretical framework (if any): How does theory guide the interpretation of the data? This provides a lens through which to view the data.
• The context of the data: Who are the participants? What is the setting? What factors might influence their perspectives?

2. Data Immersion and Familiarization

The first step in actual coding is thorough data immersion:

• Reading and Rereading: The coder reads through all the qualitative data multiple times to get a holistic sense of its content, tone, and nuances. This helps them become intimately familiar with the dataset.
• Note-Taking: Initial impressions, interesting phrases, potential themes, and questions for clarification are jotted down during this phase.

3. Developing a Codebook (or Coding Scheme)

This is a central and iterative task of the coder.