Qualitative Content Analysis: Demarcation, Varieties, Developments

  • Philipp Mayring Universität Klagenfurt
Keywords: qualitative content analysis, text analysis, CAQDAS, qualitative research, method comparison

Abstract

More than 35 years ago I developed the basic procedures of a qualitative content analysis which are still widely used in qualitative oriented social science text analysis. I want to give an overview of the reception and recent developments of this approach.

Three topics are elaborated in this article: First the theoretical background of qualitative content analysis is summarized and compared to other approaches of social science text analysis. This includes a differentiation of quantitative content analysis. In quantitative content analysis the process of categorization is running automatically, following a fixed algorithm, whereas in qualitative content analysis the assignment of categories to text passages always remains an act of interpretation. But this process strictly follows rules of interpretation. Second, the reception of my conception of qualitative content analysis is retraced and some misunderstandings cleared up. Additionally, the approach of qualitative content analysis proposed by Margrit SCHREIER and Udo KUCKARTZ is compared to my concept. This is demonstrated with an example. Third, recent developments are reviewed and free available software especially developed for qualitative content analysis (QCAmap) is introduced.

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Author Biography

Philipp Mayring, Universität Klagenfurt
Main research fields: Qualitative research methods (qualitative content analysis) Developmental psychology (adult development) Educational psychology (learning and emotion)
Publications (FQS)
Published
2019-09-26
How to Cite
Mayring, P. (2019). Qualitative Content Analysis: Demarcation, Varieties, Developments. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 20(3). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-20.3.3343
Section
Conceptualizations of Qualitative Content Analysis