Coding with Saldana

Note to self: Read Saldana annually. This is perhaps the third time I have read the first two chapters of Saldana. Like my experience with any text, I am amazed at how the pages have changed since my last reading. I thought I put it safely on the “read” shelves, yet somehow Saldana managed to clarify several things for me in the months between readings.

First, the mysterious analytic memos: What a joy it is to re-read a text that makes more sense once you have fumbled through a few amateurish attempts at applying knowledge. Alison Anders suggests that we keep field notes, field journals, and analytic journals for each study in which we are engaged. This is in addition to the multiple data files, audio files and research team meeting notes on a given study. I’m always wondering… OK, this is something I am thinking about, now how can I capture it, where do I “place” it, and where does it fit within the larger project?

Saldana reminds me that there are a multitude of purposes for analytic memos and thus a variety of types of analytic memos. I am particularly attracted to the use of subtitles for analytic memos, which Saldana (2009) informs me “function as subcodes or themes and enable you to subcategorize the contents into more study-specific groupings” (p. 41). Thinking about my data, via the analytic memo, used to seem like personal musings that related more to my apprehension about the process. I now believe that this was a necessary precursor to more sophisticated analytic memo writing. I have balked at putting my thoughts about the codes, process, and connections between and among participants into concrete memos for fear that they were immature or unrefined. Saldana reminds me that my concerns are a legitimate and necessary component in the analysis and theorizing process. Early inklings inform or question what needs to be more clearly defined and understood. Don’t tell Trena, but I think she has been trying to teach me this for years!

Now, about coding: I have rarely been in the position of working on only one study at a time and I don’t see this practice changing any time soon – particularly through the dissertation process. While working with different projects, different research teams, and even different methodologies I become aware of the variety of idiosyncratic approaches to coding data. In a phenomenological transcript review, I am looking for “What stands out to me?” and “What is this unit of meaning about?” and “Is there another way to view this?” This practice changes when I am looking at case study data through an a priori theoretical lens of categories of themes or attributes. Finally, when left to my own devices, I tend to look for naming opportunities and in vivo phrases that are particularly interesting.

Saldana references Hatch (2002), who is sitting on my “un-read” shelf right now, in listing a myriad of pattern types and categorizations on p. 6. I find (as an abstract belief) that I could apply all of these patterns to any data collected. What I appreciate about Saldana’s approach to coding after all of the practical assistance is this repeated mantra that coding is not universal, but rather driven by both the researcher and the subject of inquiry. It does not mean that I am schizophrenic if I notice and code patterns, categories and themes in different ways for each different datum, it could mean that I am letting the meaning become known organically each time I engage with my research. Note to self: write an analytic memo about this new understanding.