Paul Mihas and Karen Campbell

August 5-6

Coding serves as a heuristic (i.e., a method of discovery) to pay analytic attention to qualitative data using numerous possible lenses. It provides a foundation for analytic sense-making—including the ongoing development of categories, themes, and theories—and can also foster cognitive empathy, emergent discovery, and analytic precision.

This two-day course focuses on a select number of coding practices, including process coding and in vivo coding, and will provide opportunities for in-class exercises and activities. Participants will review:

• foundation principles for coding qualitative data
• how coding can generate visual displays and reflective analytic memos
• how different coding practices can be used in concert, rather than as isolated techniques
• how coding anchors analytic work by helping researchers identify patterns, explore conceptual relationships, and move toward categories and themes

Given that the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) provides researchers with an intriguing new heuristic for qualitative data analysis, the course devotes one of the course modules to demonstrate and discuss possible uses of AI for coding data.

Course content is derived from Saldaña’s The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers (5th edition, 2025; SAGE Publishing).