Codes and Coding
Codes and coding are integral to the process of data analysis. Codes refer to concepts and their identification through explicit criteria.
In qualitative research, discussions of coding most often center on the inductive process of searching for concepts, ideas, themes, and categories that help the researcher to organize and interpret data.
Coding as Process
The derivation of codes and the coding process tend to differ in quantitative and qualitative research. In quantitative research, codes are commonly created prior to data collection.
Concepts and hypotheses are most often developed in advance, and categories and their codes are derived deductively from theory or borrowed from the extant literature.
Coding consists of identifying potentially interesting events, features, phrases, behaviors, or stages of a process and distinguishing them with labels.