August 4-5
Coding serves as a heuristic—that is, a method of discovery—for paying analytic attention to qualitative data through a range of possible lenses. It provides a foundation for analytic sense-making, including developing and refining categories, themes, and theories—while also fostering analytic precision, emergent discovery, and insight into participants’ lifeworlds.
Rather than treating codes as static containers, this course emphasizes coding as a generative practice and codes as fluid, evolving tools for iterative meaning-making. We will discuss foundational principles for coding, how different coding practices—such as process coding, versus coding, and in vivo coding—can be used in concert, rather than as isolated techniques and consider how coding serves as a heuristic bridge to visual displays and reflective analytic memos. Finally, we will address how generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), when human-led, can serve as an additional tool for qualitative data analysis. The course will provide opportunities for in-class exercises and activities.
Course content is informed by Saldaña’s The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers (5th edition, 2025; SAGE Publishing).
