![]() To that end, I’m going to describe a few ways that you can use the various tools in Quirkos to do Open and Axial coding. It’s also the reason that no qualitative software packages have buttons or wizards marked ‘Open and Axial Coding Mode’ – the definitions and implementations of these steps are too varied to have one approach. They are all flexible enough that you can use them with most analytic approaches, and none of the major packages suggest they were designed to privilege one over the other.īut I’m often asked, How do you do Open and Axial coding in Quirkos? It’s a good question, but also a difficult one since I’ve seen so many different variants on these approaches. Usually, these claims are pretty debatable: I’ve seen all kinds of different techniques used in all kinds of different software. Some commentators claim that qualitative data analysis software ( CAQDAS or QDAS) doesn’t support open and axial (or selective coding) approaches, or that particular packages are (or are not) designed to support particular strategies. That’s why (as always) I want to note that my descriptions can only be a crude simplification, and you should always refer back to the wider literature and reference list at the end of the article before applying any of them! If applying ‘grounded theory’, students should quickly discover the breadth of concepts and procedures that exist under this umbrella and note the numerous possible ways to implement it at the analysis stage. ![]() It’s up to the researcher to examine their methodological and phenomenological beliefs, explore the different analytic approaches, and decide which best applies to their data and research questions. As always in qualitative analysis, there is no one-size-fits-all approach, or step-by-step procedure to ‘do’ any analytical method. However, as Vollstedt and Rezat (2019) note, “the procedures are neither clear-cut, nor do they easily define phases that chronologically come one after the other”. Axial coding is where connections between the open codes are examined, and used to create larger codes or eventually themes (in the selective coding step). It is kind of like breaking down the data into the smallest components, so that they can later be brought back together in a greater conceptual level in axial coding. Roughly speaking, open coding involves techniques to describe and conceptualise the data at a very basic level, on small parts of the data, often a line-by-line basis. But regardless of the origin or specifics, open and axial coding seems to have become an analytic method in its own right, and a process that many use to structure and conceptualise their coding process. These descriptions are not entirely equivalent, and not necessarily performed in this strict order, in fact there maybe several iterations of each in a cyclical coding process. Charmaz (2006/2014) uses the term ‘Initial Coding’ which could be seen as similar to open coding, followed by axial coding as one possible approach in the secondary Focused coding or ‘Theoretical integration’ stage. ![]() Usually these follow the description in Strauss and Corbin (1990), but others such as Glaser (1978) defined similar procedures using the terms ‘Substantive coding’ and ‘Theoretical coding’. Many forms of grounded theory adopt a variant of open, axial and selective coding as their key steps in qualitative analysis.
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