Transcript content analysis drug prevention

Evidence in Practice
This is a coursework style assessment, that
will be formally assessed during your exam.
The specification requires that you:
Describe one key issue in health psychology, using the
content YOU have studied within the application and
conduct a content analysis concerning this key issue.
THE ISSUE OF HOW TO PREVENT
DRUG ABUSE
Learning objectives
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To revisit the ‘Key Issues’ we have
covered on the psychology course
To learn about what content analysis
means and why it is used.
To investigate how to carry out a content
analysis.
To look at how a content analysis may
be summarised and conclusions drawn.
To look at the issues associated with
doing a content analysis.
Key Issues?
• What do we mean by Key Issue?
• What are the relevance of Key Issues to
the psychology course?
• What kinds of question require you to use
your key issues?
• Identify the Key Issues you have
examined
What is content analysis?
• Content analysis is a research
method used to measure the
number of times a behaviour or
event occurs within one or
several forms of media (or other
artefacts). e.g. songs, TV,
books, magazines, computer
games, newspapers etc.
• The process is similar to that of
an observation although is
indirect as you are not
observing people directly.
Content analysis Quantitative
Is often linked with analysis of documents.
Most documentary evidence is qualitative but it is
possible to turn qualitative evidence in to
quantitative.
Quantitative content analysis involves categorising
the information in some way in order to make
comparisons between documents. So you may
count the column inches devoted to women's
sport for example.
Speeches, books, television programmes or
reports can be analysed using content analysis
Quantitative content analysis
Strengths
• You can make
comparisons see patterns
and trends
• Makes complex text
easier to analyse. You
can find meanings or
biases at a glance
• You can repeat the
analysis to test reliability
Weaknesses
• It can distort the truth.
You will only find info on
the categories you
originally look for. This
means you can easily
create a bias
• Does not give context i.e.
through analysis you can
lose the original depth
and detail
What happens in a content analysis?
See hand out on the blog
Sample: a content analysis is different from other
research methods in that the sample is not a group
of people.
The sample will be the artefacts that are to be
analysed. This needs to be representative. For
example, if looking at gender stereotypes in car
adverts that appear in magazines, you would need a
wide range of different magazines to get a
representative sample.
If you only used men’s magazines, your sample
would be biased, and you may not be able to
generalise your results.
Coding System: Similarly to an observation, the
researcher has to create a coding system, which
breaks down the information into categories. So
for each advert, you may first identify the gender of
person in the car advert, and then tally what they
are depicted doing.
These behavioural categories might be:
•Driving the car
•Passenger in the car
•Washing the car
•Loading up the boot
•Sitting on the bonnet
•Looking at the car
•Etc.....
The researcher would then tally each time a particular
behaviour is included. This is called a quantitative analysis.
Gender stereotypes in car
adverts
Driving the car
Passenger
Cleaning the Car
Buying a car
Tallies
•An alternative to having a coding system
like above is to do a qualitative analysis.
•This is where the researcher has
discovered certain themes and chooses a
particular example to illustrate this theme.
•Instead of counting the data, the relevant
information is described (hence qualitative
rather than quantitative).
Results: the researcher then looks at the data he
has collected, and draws conclusions.
• For example, thinking back to anti drug campaigns, you
may find that government backed campaigns to prevent
drug abuse use more instances of the biological effects
of drug taking, compared to a non-government backed
campaigns (i.e. what you might find in a soap opera or a
pop song)
• You may therefore conclude from this that there is a
need to accommodate the awareness of the biological
effects of drugs in to non-government backed antidrugs strategies, in order to make them more effective.
Strengths and weaknesses of content analysis
High ecological validity
No chance of demand characteristics.
Replicable
Reliability can also be assessed using inter-observer
reliability
Observer bias
Culture bias (Ethnocentric)
We cannot draw cause and effect relationships
Conducting a content analysis
You need to:
1)
Make a list of any factors that can be used to help to
prevent binge drinking (these should come from AS
and Health Psychology).
2)
From this list of drug prevention concepts you need to
outline them in categories that could be measured as
preventative. Decide what categories will be on your
list
3)
Decide on the sample you need to study e.g. a
representative sample which will allow you to discuss
your key issue. What sampling decisions do you have
to consider?
Conducting a content analysis
5) Briefly describe your sources and how you sourced
them. Remember to make this a fair representation.
6) Tally (count) the number of binge drinking prevention
behaviours that were used.
7) Draw a visual representation of quantitative data.
8) Were there any qualitative comments that could be
made?
9) Write up your findings and draw a conclusion.
Real life example …
A content analysis was
Conducted by Dr Guy Cumberbatch
and Sally Gauntlett on behalf of Ofcom
into ‘Smoking, alcohol and drugs on
television’
Ensure you have read this piece of
research before next lesson (see blog also
p328 Brain text book)
Possible Exam question
• (a) Describe how you undertook your
Content Analysis (4)
• (b) Using evidence explain what
conclusions you drew from your content
analysis. (6)