Overview

Qualitative analysis is the act of finding themes and patterns in a set of non-numerical data. It can be used to gain insight into people’s experiences, perceptions, and emotions. Analyzing data can be done through different techniques. An accessible tool for interpreting data is coding the information. Put simply, coding is putting the data into different categories. A code or category can be a word or a short phrase that represents a theme or an idea. The researcher derives meaning from the codes/categories, assigning titles to the qualitative themes, and presenting the findings in a meaningful way.