Colour Coding: an Alternative to Analyse Empirical Data via Grounded Theory Bernd O. Stottok, Martin N. Bergaus and Andrea Gorra Leeds Metropolitan University, UK b.stottok@gmx.de martin.bergaus@gmx.at a.gorra@leedsmet.ac.uk 1. Abstract Grounded Theory is an inductive and systematic qualitative methodology that has been widely used in various disciplines to code and analyse data in order to facilitate explanations about interrelationships of these data. This paper discusses a visual alternative to “traditional” semantic, numerical or alphanumerical Grounded Theory interview coding and analysis: that of Colour Coding. The method follows the steps of Grounded Theory coding but uses colours to reflect the code, concept, and finally category to which a piece of text is assigned. Codes in this sense are keywords and short sentences, typically assigned to statements in the interview transcript, concepts are interrelationships of codes, and categories are interrelationships of concepts. The paper demonstrates how the Colour Coding Method has already been successfully used in three different studies. It shows the different steps necessary when using Colour Coding and evaluates the suitability of the method by discussing its advantages and disadvantages. Even though some may perceive the Colour Coding technique as time consuming, Colour Coding makes it simple to see which parts of the text belong to which category and of the importance they have had to the interviewee, based on the amount of cells this category occupies in the “Fact Finding Tool”. This analysis tool, set up in Microsoft Excel, is used to keep track of the various codes, concepts, and categories and to support their analysis. It also enables the researcher to split up or combine categories during the analysis process by changing and tracking the colour. This article is of significance to those interested in the practical application of Grounded Theory and also of particular relevance for researchers who are visually-minded owing to the method’s focus on colour. The method can also be adapted for coding not linked to Grounded Theory. 2. Key Words Colour Coding, Grounded Theory, Visualisation, Empirical Research, Qualitative Data Analysis 3. Introduction This article introduces an alternative coding procedure used in Grounded Theory Methodology (GTM) - the method of Colour Coding. The paper begins with a short introduction to GTM, with particular focus on data collection and interview coding methods, followed by an introduction to Colour Coding, the visual coding method introduced in this publication. This new and innovative way of coding interview data uses coloured fonts to assign certain codes, concepts and categories to the interview text, with codes being keywords or short sentences, concepts being interrelationships of codes, and categories being interrelationships of concepts. It has been successfully used in three dissertation projects at Masters and PhD level. Colour Coding follows the tradition of the different coding methods used in Grounded Theory (GT). In addition, we argue that it supports the use of abduction, a way of forming and confirming a hypothesis, as the method of Colour Coding helps to move quickly from the phase of open coding to

focused coding. A log of all codes, concepts and categories identified in the interviews is kept in an Microsoft Excel file which will be referred to in the paper as “Fact Finding Tool”. This tool consolidates all data analysis related codes and text. Finally, the paper will detail with help of specific examples how this visual method of text coding can be used and discuss its advantages and disadvantages. We believe that the coding method we introduced is an interesting and viable alternative to traditional GT coding methods and is of particular interest to visually-minded researchers as well as those who are interested in the practical application of Grounded Theory. By adapting the presented Colour Coding Method for the requirements that may facilitate from other coding processes, especially if they are not linked to Grounded Theory Methodology, this new method could be of help to researchers as well. 4. Overview of Grounded Theory Methodology Grounded Theory Methodology (GTM) is a systematic research methodology that provides a framework to collect and analyse empirical data. It can be used to generate a theory from the collected data. A fundamental definition by its founding fathers in their book “The Discovery of Grounded Theory” further illustrates this: Grounded Theory is “the discovery of theory from data – systematically obtained and analysed in social research” (Glaser and Strauss 1967: p 1). GTM does not only focus on certain case studies to provide an insight into social reality but its main focus lies on the discovery of theoretical insights (Strauss and Corbin 1996: p 32). It is one of the most used methodologies world wide in qualitative social studies, but is not only used in its original field of study, sociology, but has also been used in other disciplines, such as psychology, pedagogy or information systems (Paris and Hürzeler 2008, Smit and Bryant 2000). While the origins of Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967) have focused on an inductive way of interpreting the collected data, further developments of Grounded Theory, such as by Strauss and Corbin (1996), have also recommended a more pragmatic and systematic process as well as a focus on abduction. Abduction is the process of developing a hypothesis, which has been introduced by Peirce (1955) to complement the two prevalent ways of reaching logical conclusions, deduction and induction. Conclusions can be reached with help of deduction based on predictions (hypotheses), which then can be verified with help of facts (induction). When using Grounded Theory Methodology, the data collection and analysis follow a cyclical process that uses early data analysis to shape the on-going data collections (see Figure 1). By reading through the interview transcript the researcher identifies concepts and linkages between different elements in the text. In Grounded Theory these are typically known as categories, while codes are keywords or short sentences that are assigned to elements of the text. By coding the interview text, the researcher can identify phenomena and linkages and can group different codes into larger, more meaningful categories (Charmaz 2006).

Figure 1 Steps in developing a Grounded Theory

Typically the following ways of inductively coding the collected data are used: firstly open coding, secondly focused coding, and finally axial coding. The process of so called open coding, also known as line-by-line coding, assigns codes to participants’ words and statements to develop concepts, constituting the start of the analytic process. This initial coding phase allows the researcher to compare events or situations with others and to develop more abstract concepts based on these events (Charmaz 2006: pp 80-81). The second commonly used coding stage involves assigning focused codes. These are not meticulously assigned to every single line of interview transcript but can make use of some of the initial concepts that focus on specific issues identified in the previous coding phase. Focused coding is not a linear process and may require the researcher to repeatedly go over previously coded statements or events to confirm assumptions that have been previously made (Charmaz 2006: pp 245-269). This process results in an “abstract representation of an event, object, or action/interaction that a researcher identifies as being significant in the data” (Strauss and Corbin 1996: p 103), its outcome should be the development of more abstract categories. The next coding stage, axial coding, identifies key categories and their relationships to others, as well as “the act of relating categories to subcategories along the lines of their properties and dimensions” (Strauss and Corbin 1996: p 123). The initial results of these coding phases can be used to guide the selection of further respondents, known as theoretical sampling, to further find evidence for the central category and the developing theory. The process of coding and developing categories is supported by writing memos, which consist of a set of notes, that are kept continuously and provide a record of thoughts and ideas to the researcher. While the process of Colour Coding introduced in this paper has in common the cyclical data collection and analysis of the “traditional” Grounded Theory coding process, the approach introduced in this paper differs significantly in the way the interview data are coded. 5. Colour Coding The Colour Coding Method has been successfully used in three empirical research studies, out of which two provided interim results for PhD theses and the other one was a study for a Masters dissertation. For all three studies (Bergaus 2010, Bergaus and Stottok 2010, Stottok 2010b) it was of importance to use an effective way of coding and analysing interview data. Hence, the idea of Colour Coding was developed and subsequently refined as it offered a way of moving quickly from open coding to the next step of focused coding. It permitted the use of a more abductive than inductive

approach which resulted in the early development of initial categories and sub-categories, using a visual way based on colours that was perceived by the authors as intuitively superior and easier to use than the traditional Grounded Theory coding techniques. The following overview (Figure 2) demonstrates the differences between “traditional” GTM numerical coding, i.e. simply assigning numbers for each detected code, and Colour Coding. In the upper line we displayed three examples (Gorra 2007: pp 172-173) including their numerical codes, whereas in the lower line we inserted the same text passages after Colour Coding them. [33] respectively the sentence in pink colour represent a code which belongs to the category “Privacy is about liberty and freedom of doing what I want, [127] respectively the sea green sentence belong to the category “In-dignation and resignation”, and [15] respectively the blue sentence were subordinated to the category “Distinguishing between private and public life“.

Figure 2 Comparison between numerical coding and Colour Coding

In all three studies, we conducted several interview cycles, starting with a set of pilot interviews (first cycle) in order to validate the research method itself. After analysing the data with the Colour Coding Method, we conducted a second interview cycle, using our method again, where we only used a small proportion of open coding. One of the benefits of our way of Colour Coding was that we could start the focused coding a lot earlier than using traditional GT coding methods (Bergaus 2010, Ber-gaus and Stottok 2010: pp 208-209). Coding the data collected during the third interview cycle mainly served to validate the colour codes, categories and sub-categories and helped us to verify that we had reached theoretical saturation. Reaching theoretical saturation is the end point of developing a theory using GTM; further data will not help to add any more findings. In the following we will de-scribe in detail how we went about using the Colour Coding Method for coding and analysing our interview data. 6. Use of Colour Coding in practice In the beginning the complete transcribed interview text was available in a uniform colour, which was black on white background. We read the text of the first interview from start to finish, word by word, line by line, sentence by sentence, and paragraph by paragraph. As soon as we encountered a word or a text passage which we thought could be suitable for a code (open coding as per GTM) we marked this part with another colour. As the transcribed interviews for the three studies were avail-able in Microsoft Word we decided to simply choose any colour from the available colour range in this software to highlight and hence “code” the first piece of text. The next step after we had re-coloured a text passage was to decide to which inductively created sub-category (also known as a concept in GT) and, at the next level, category this code belonged. Once we had found an appropriate higher-level sub-category and superior category, we automatically decided by re-colouring that piece of text in the transcribed interview in a certain colour that we would use this same colour for all other text passages that we could also assign to exactly this already cre-ated category and sub-category (Bergaus and Stottok 2010: p 128). We also defined that we would use the same colour also for newly found text passages which we would assign to the already identi-fied category, but, owing to a slightly different aspect, another sub-category. This procedure follows

explicitly the requirements of Grounded Theory Methodology. Within GTM a code is defined as sen-tence or paragraph that is developed into an aspect by using interpretation and/or memoing. Such a code can be subordinated to a concept, i.e. sub-category, and consequently also to a category. As mentioned above, we introduced a Fact Finding Tool (Stottok 2010a: pp 7-10) in our three studies for the analysis of transcribed interview texts in addition to the file containing the transcribed inter-views. With the help of this tool it could easily be seen which codes and sub-categories belonged to which category, and also to which codes memos have been allocated. Furthermore, text passages could be taken from the tool to put them into the results section of a publication, either for summaries or as citations (Bergaus and Stottok 2010: p 125). In the Fact Finding Tool, we created a tab page for each category identified in the interview tran-scripts. After that we opened the first tab within this file and added the name of the category in its first line. Below that the name of the first detected sub-category together with additional, explanatory in-formation was added. We decided that we would also add additional sub-categories we would identify during the continuing analysis process in the next lines below the first sub-category in the relevant category tab. In the first line underneath these explanatory lines we inserted the information from which interview the text passages in this column was taken. In one study we did this for example by adding “Interview Ef01” in the most left column, and later on “Interview Ef02” in the second-left col-umn, and so forth. We copied the first found code, i.e. the first text passage we had found in the in-terview, and pasted it into the first column of the first category tab page of the Fact Finding Tool. We also defined a consistent width from start for all these columns to keep the subsequent analysis more simple, as with that we could see from the number of cells in each column, equalling each in-terview, which extent and consequently which importance for the interviewee this category has got. Once we had fixed the width of the columns, there was only limited space in each cell, defining the maximum length of content that we could insert into that cell. Therefore, we split the text passage into as many sections as needed to reproduce and insert the complete passage (Bergaus and Stottok 2010: p 128). As soon as we could identify another text passage in the first transcribed interview which we found suitable to be subordinated to the already existing first category (this procedure equals focused cod-ing as per GTM) we again copied this text in the interview. Moreover, we re-coloured it with the de-fined colour for the first category, and pasted the text into the next free cells in the first column for the first interview in the first category tab of the Fact Finding Tool. During the coding process we did the same for all parts of texts from this first interview that we could subordinate to that category. We only finished after we had completely gone through the first interview looking for codes we could identify and sub-categories we could iteratively create from these codes, as long as we found them suitable to belong to the first defined category (Bergaus and Stottok 2010: p 128). Creating the Fact Finding Tool in Microsoft Excel had the advantage that we could add memos to the cells containing relevant text passages. And we could use the same colour range as in Microsoft Word for colouring, i.e. coding text passages. For that reason we could use exactly the same colours for the explanatory lines in the tabs of the Fact Finding Tool that we had used for coding text pas-sages in the interview file. These lines carry the name of the category and its subordinated sub-categories plus the name for the text from which the passages were taken. The following two figures show this procedure. In the first image (Figure 3) we have displayed an excerpt from a Fact Finding Tool tab where the colour “light pink” was used for the explanatory lines.

Figure 3 Excerpt from a Fact Finding Tool tab page with interview text passages

As shown in Figure 3, above, we inserted the name of the category (“Availability”) in the first line. In the three lines below we explained the sub-categories (“Submitting information directly to the train drivers”, and so forth) that we could subordinate to that category, followed by a reference to the origi-nal document from which all following text passages in this column were taken, in this case “Interview Ef01”. To make it easier for the analyst himself and for other researches to track the correlation be-tween the text passages in the transcribed interview texts and the lines in the Fact Finding Tool, to which the coded passages belong to, we used the same colour (in this case “light pink”) to re-colour the relevant parts of text in the original document. The following Figure 4 shows an excerpt from the coded interview text of “Interview Ef01” where you can identify the first text passage from Figure 3.

Figure 4 Excerpt from a colour coded interview after the first coding

After we had completely colour coded and analysed the first interview regarding the first category, we went meticulously through the complete interview another time, beginning at the very top. In this second step we were looking for a code which we could subordinate to a new sub-category of the already detected category or to a different category with other sub-categories via interpretation or memoing. As soon as we found such a passage, either in a part that we had already used for the first category or at an up to now untouched part of the text, we had to re-colour it as well. If this new pas-sage qualified for a new sub-category for the already existent category it was already coded in the right colour. In this case we only had to add a new sub-category in the first Fact Finding Tool tab. If it qualified for a new category and was not yet coded, i.e. coloured, we had to code it with a new colour which we had not yet used so far. The re-colouring did follow the same procedure as we already de-scribed above (Bergaus and Stottok 2010: p 129). The following Figure 5 illustrates this procedure, where we coloured two sentences in pale blue as we subordinated them to the new category “Func-

tionalities”.

Figure 5 Excerpt from a colour coded interview after two coding steps

If a text passage was already colour coded we chose a slightly different approach. To re-colour such a passage completely would have deleted the first colour code. Therefore we had to choose a mixed colouring, i.e. an alteration mode. We let the fist word of that passage in the first colour but changed the second word to the new colour for the second category. This alteration mode can be seen in the lower part of Figure 6. The first word remains in light pink (for category “Availability”); the second word was changed to pale blue (for category “Functionalities”). Each following word was coloured alternatively with the appropriate colour. We kept that alteration mode until the complete part that had qualified for the new category was totally coded as well (Bergaus and Stottok 2010: p 129).

Figure 6 Excerpt from a colour coded interview after two coding steps including alteration mode

The next step was to create another tab in the Fact Finding Tool for the second category, to add the explanatory lines for the newly detected category and sub-category, to create columns in the same width as fixed before, and to begin to fill the cells of the first column with passages from the first in-terview. We went on with the exact same procedure as describe above to check the complete tran-scription for the second category including additional sub-categories for this second category. We went through the first interview again and again from top to bottom until we could find no more codes, sub-categories and categories. All that we found we transferred also into the Fact Finding Tool (Bergaus and Stottok 2010: pp 129-130).

Afterwards, we analysed and colour coded the second transcribed interview in the same way as de-scribed before. In parallel we filled the Fact Finding Tool with the content derived from that second interview (Bergaus and Stottok 2010: p 130). The following Figure 7 shows an excerpt from the Fact Finding Tool tab for the category “Availability” after the analysis and coding of three interview texts of which the relevant text passages had been copied from the interviews and pasted into the tool.

Figure 7 Excerpt from the Fact Finding Tool with text passages from three interviews

We went through this procedure again and again until we had all interviews analysed and colour coded and all relevant parts of text transferred into the appropriate category tabs of the Fact Finding Tool (Bergaus and Stottok 2010: p 130). If there was more than one category in one text passage, we colour coded it alternately word by word within the analysed text passage. Figure 8 shows an excerpt from a completely coded interview. It shows three colours that indicate the three different categories to which we subordinated the text passages. As final step we analysed all text passages we had col-our coded, categorised and transferred into the Fact Finding Tool (Bergaus and Stottok 2010: p 130).

Figure 8 Excerpt from a completely colour coded interview

Figure 9, below, shows another excerpt from a completed colour coded interview and illustrates the potential complexity of this coding method. The first two sentences were coded with four colours as we could subordinate them to four different categories, while the remaining paragraph had to be col-our coded three times. However, as further explained below, the use of numerous codes per sen-tence or paragraph may indicate to the researcher that some of these could possibly be combined to form new sub-categories.

Figure 9 Another excerpt from a completely colour coded interview

In the following Figure 10 you can see an overview of some results we presented in one of our stud-ies (Bergaus and Stottok 2010: adapted from pp 157-164): after the GT based analysis of the tran-scribed interviews with the Colour Coding Method five categories were detected. Each category is shown in the colour that was assigned to it in the Fact Finding Tool. “Availability” in light pink, “Auto-mation” in buff, and so forth.

Figure 10 Example of the correlation between colours and detected categories

7. Discussion of the Colour Coding Method Strauss emphasised in an interview that was taped shortly before his death in September 1996 (Legewie and Schervier-Legewie 2004: pp 14-15) that “Grounded Theory is a methodology and a philosophy, not just a set of methods or a set of techniques”. Strauss states: “I developed the style in some elementary way only”. He considers: “Coding is what you do with the classifications, it is about relationships“. To him, data analysis is an iterative process: “If you have an interview and you begin to think about it, and then you think about it some more, and that you put that into the next interview”. Strauss is also aware that “People do it differently depending on different kind of materials they have got”. The Colour Coding Method is based on these statements of Strauss. From the perspective of the authors of this paper one of the main advantages is that one only needs two files for the complete analysis of all interview data, which makes it very easy for the researcher to edit and to analyse even large sets of interview transcription data. The first is the text file which contains all colour coded interview texts at the end of the analysis process; the second is the analysis tool, which we named Fact Finding Tool. In the Fact Finding Tool we are able to display all process steps of our Grounded Theory analysis, including interpretation and memoing, which also makes it easy for other researchers to track all steps of the analysis process (Bergaus and Stottok 2010: p 131). An additional feature is that the coded text passages can easily be identified visually in the transcribed interviews. As we used always the same colour for coding each of the categories in all interviews, all categories are consistently coded and thus can easily be compared. Due to the standardised width of the columns in the Fact Finding Tool the analyst can compare the number of cells, i.e. text passages assigned to a category. This gives an indication of how important

the different categories have been for each interviewee. Some parts of text can suit for more than only one category, which means that such text passages have to be colour coded repeatedly which can prove time-consuming. However, this obvious disadvantage can some times also develop into an advantage for the following reason. Using the Colour Coding Method will become more difficult the bigger the sets of codes are, as the colours that can be used for coding are limited by the number of words of the analysed text passage. If there is a colour coded text passage with too many colours, for example five or more colours, the researcher may have to reconsider combining some of them. If a category consists only of text passages that never appear coded alone but always in combination with other colours as these text passages also can be subordinated to other categories, it should be reviewed as well. Such findings might be an indication that not enough attention has been spent on the possibility that some of these categories could be sub-categories of a new superior category. The analyst must also be aware that there is a risk of trying to simplify and minimise the number of codes per sentence, especially when several colours have to be used within the same sentence. An analysis that uses the Colour Coding Method could be considered to be very time-consuming. Limitations in using the Colour Coding Method may exist for people with achromatopsia. Depending on the degree of the colour vision deficiency, the affected analyst can only restrictedly or not at all use some colours and tones as these may only be observed as contrasts. Similar restrictions have to be considered for researchers who suffer from a colour abnormity like Daltonism. 8. Conclusion The Colour Coding Method presented in this paper has been developed as an alternative Grounded Theory coding method to analyse data. It may be of interest for all those who are looking for practical applications of Grounded Theory, and is especially suited for visually-minded analysts. The devel-opment of this method followed the advice of Strauss, one of the founders of Grounded Theory, that every researcher must find his own way how to analyse data, based on his creativity and the avail-able data. During the analyses in our three studies we found the Colour Coding Method to be very suitable, as we could efficiently develop categories and sub-categories and could switch from open to focused coding at an early stage. Colour Coding is a pragmatic approach that supports effective data analysis and processing, which we found easy to use. For us this method has proven its practicability. In addition to the file in which we colour coded the transcribed interviews we used a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet which we referred to as “Fact Finding Tool”. In that tool we analysed the categories we had detected, using one tab page for each category. This tool also contains all sub-categories, coded text passages, and memos. An analysis with the Colour Coding Method can be time consuming. For analysts suffering from achromatopsia or a colour vision deficiency, Colour Coding can only be used with limitations. However, we believe that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, which is why we used this alternative coding method in three studies. For us the use of the Colour Coding Method has two main advantages. Firstly, we found it very bene-ficial to use, particularly as it helped us to move quickly from open to focused coding, and to develop categories and sub-categories at an early stage. It therefore supported the abductive proceeding in our studies and helped us to speed up the time-consuming interview coding process. Secondly, this visual approach to coding suited us as visually minded researchers and helped to keep us motivated. Finally, we believe that the process of Colour Coding could be used in any form of interview coding, not being restricted to Grounded Theory Methodology. Therefore, considering these numerous ad-vantages, we believe that the Colour Coding Method has the potential to enhance existing coding methods. The Colour Coding Method is worth consideration by other researchers, and we would be

delighted to hear feedback from those researchers who use it. Please email the authors. 9. References Bergaus, Martin (2010) Design Aspects on Service Delivery Platforms by Analysing Perception of Ubiquitous Services – Data Collection and Methodology, Grounded Theory Research Salon, 18 January, Leeds Metropolitan University. Bergaus, Martin N. and Stottok, Bernd O. (2010) Verbesserter Nutzen von Telematiksystemen im Schienenverkehr durch Bereitstellung innovativer Service-Delivery-Plattformen, [online], Master Thesis, Danube University Krems, stottok.rollsport-nuernberg.de/. Charmaz, Kathy (2006) Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide Through Qualitative Analysis, SAGE Publications, London. Glaser, Barney G. and Strauss, Anselm L. (1967) The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research, Aldine de Gruyter, Hawthorne, New York. Gorra, Andrea (2007) An analysis of the relationship between individuals’ perceptions of privacy and mobile phone location data: a grounded theory study [online], PhD Thesis, Leeds Metropolitan University, www.leedsmet.ac.uk/inn/alic/thesis.htm. Legewie, Heiner and Schervier-Legewie, Barbara (2004) ““Research is Hard Work, it's Always a bit Suffering. Therefore on the Other Side it should be Fun”. Anselm Strauss in Conversation with Heiner Legewie and Barbara Schervier-Legewie”, [online], Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung, Vol 5, No. 3, Art. 22, nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0403222, inclusive audio files of the interview. Paris, Rubert and Hürzeler, Peter (2008) Was versteht man unter Grounded Theory?, Institute for Technology Management, University St. Gallen, St. Gallen. Peirce, Charles S. (1955) Deduction, Induction and Hypothesis, In: Peirce, Charles S.: Collected Papers Vol. II, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp 619-644. Smit, J. and Bryant, A. (2000) Grounded theory method in IS research: Glaser vs Strauss, [online], Working Paper, Leeds Metropolitan University, www.leedsmet.ac.uk/inn/2000-7.pdf. Stottok, Bernd O. (2010a) Colour Coding – A Grounded Theory Method to Analyse Data, [online], Grounded Theory Research Salon, 18 January, Leeds Metropolitan University, stottok.rollsport-nuernberg.de/. Stottok, Bernd O. (2010b) Towards True Team Play in Railway Telematics, [online], 4th EurailTelematics Conference, Berlin, stottok.rollsport-nuernberg.de/. Strauss, Anselm L. and Corbin, Juliet (1996) Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques – Second Edition, SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks, California.