Interpretive Qualitative Content Analysis

Interpretive qualitative content analysis (also called conventional content analysis) is a qualitative approach to systematically analysing text in which coding categories emerge directly from the data rather than from a pre-defined coding scheme. The researcher immerses themselves in the material, derives codes inductively through close reading, groups those codes into interpretive categories, and constructs a conceptual account of the content's meaning. It is especially suited to domains where existing theory is sparse and the aim is to understand how participants describe or make sense of a phenomenon.