First and Second Cycle Coding

¶ … Second Cycle Coding In this week's reading from the course text Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods Sourcebook, the authors explain the process of coding data in two distinct cycles, First and Second Cycle Coding. For this Discussion, you will analyze the relationship between First and Second Level Coding. To prepare for this Discussion: Miles, Huberman, and Saldana explain the structures of First and Second Level Coding.

To what extent can having such a structure help or hinder a researcher? What First Level Coding methods did you use to analyze data? Where the First Cycle coding methods helpful in finding Pattern Codes in the data? With these thoughts in mind: Post by Day 3 a response of 2 -- 3 paragraphs in which you analyze the relationship between First and Second Cycle Coding Methods for qualitative data analysis. Share which First Cycle coding method(s) you used and if this method helped find patterns in the data.

When appropriate, be sure to support your postings and responses with specific references to the reading(s) and/or video program(s), using APA format. My Response: Coding of Qualitative Data Coding qualitative data is a critical step towards analysis and interpretation of data. It is at this stage that the answers to the study's objectives and questions take shape (i.e., helps structure) and create a more defined direction to data analysis.

Since data collected through qualitative methods are characteristically text-heavy, specific coding methods are developed to align to the different kinds of data and methods of collection, and in effect, to respond to the research objectives and questions put forth by the researcher. In understanding the issue of human trafficking, specifically the gender differences between male and female victims of human trafficking, it is important to put dimensions into concepts and processes related to human trafficking.

Since the qualitative domain of the study provides a deeper understanding of the issue, First Cycle methods that the researcher considers appropriate to the study are structural and in vivo coding (Saldana, 2009:66, 74). The researcher considers structural coding as a necessary coding method for the study's qualitative data because it provides triangulation of data as both quantitative and qualitative approaches are employed in the study. Qualitative data will be culled out from the interviews of human trafficking victims, the key informants of the study.

However, there is also a quantitative component to the study, wherein the researcher also analyzes existing data and statistics on human trafficking, both at the international and domestic scales. Quantitative data from various studies and statistical sources could then be used as the frame from which codes will be developed and organized. Coding qualitative data in a structured manner and patterned after variables and factors meaningful to quantitative data on human trafficking could provide the researcher's analysis.