Coding In-depth Semistructured Interviews Problems of Unitization and Intercoder Reliability and Agreement

Many social science studies are based on coded in-depth semistructured interview transcripts. But researchers rarely report or discuss coding reliability in this work. Nor is there much literature on the subject for this type of data. This article presents a procedure for developing coding schemes f...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sociological methods & research Vol. 42; no. 3; pp. 294 - 320
Main Authors: Campbell, John L., Quincy, Charles, Osserman, Jordan, Pedersen, Ove K.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.08.2013
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects:
Academic disciplines
Agreements
Data
Errors
Interviews
Knowledge
Qualitative analysis
Qualitative Methods
Qualitative research
Reliability
Social sciences
Social theory
Sociological methodology
intercoder agreement
coding
intercoder reliability
qualitative methods
interviews
ISSN:0049-1241, 1552-8294
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Many social science studies are based on coded in-depth semistructured interview transcripts. But researchers rarely report or discuss coding reliability in this work. Nor is there much literature on the subject for this type of data. This article presents a procedure for developing coding schemes for such data. It involves standardizing the units of text on which coders work and then improving the coding scheme’s discriminant capability (i.e., reducing coding errors) to an acceptable point as indicated by measures of either intercoder reliability or intercoder agreement. This approach is especially useful for situations where a single knowledgeable coder will code all the transcripts once the coding scheme has been established. This approach can also be used with other types of qualitative data and in other circumstances.
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ISSN:0049-1241
1552-8294
DOI:10.1177/0049124113500475