Useful Qualitative Research Paper

Qualitative Sociology, Vol. 24, No. 3, 2001

Analyzing Interview Data: The Development and Evolution of a Coding System
Cynthia Weston,1 Terry Gandell, Jacinthe Beauchamp, Lynn McAlpine, Carol Wiseman, and Cathy Beauchamp

This paper describes the process used by a research team to develop a coding system for analyzing data from interview transcripts and situates the process within approaches to qualitative analysis. Successive versions of the coding scheme illustrate its development over several years; the role of team members and verification in this evolution are discussed. Several lessons emerge from our experience: a) coding is not what happens before analysis, but constitutes an important part of the analysis; b) a team builds codes and coding builds a team through the creation of a shared understanding of the phenomenon; and c) collaborative qualitative research requires a kind of rigor that an independent researcher might not be aware of or need.
KEY WORDS: coding; interview data; qualitative research; research methodology; data analysis.

INTRODUCTION Much is written about methods for coding interview data: ways to think about it, how to do it, how to document it, and how to report it. We have coded mountains of verbal data in the form of interview transcripts in various contexts during the past decade, and have reported the results of our investigations (e.g., Weston et al. 1997; McAlpine et al. 1999a; McAlpine et al. 1999b). However, these reports are the tip of the iceberg. We have not written about what lies below the surface— the enormous task of developing coding systems and coding the transcripts that provide the very basis for reporting the results of our investigations. Our research team (the authors of this article) has worked together since 1994 to develop a
1 Correspondence

should be directed to Cynthia Weston, Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology and the Center for University Teaching and Learning, McGill University,

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