All in academic transcription

What do qualitative researchers need to know about transcription?

What do qualitative researchers need to know about transcription?

Transcription Centre
Hints and tips, research methods, academic transcription

When people write up their research, the concept of turning the audio from interviews into text is very often simply described in the methodology as ‘the audio was transcribed’. This over-simplistic breakdown of the act of transcription is something that should be considered more by qualitative researchers.

This is a quick look at a few key points raised in a new article in a research methods special issue of the journal Voluntas. There is a link to the open access article, which we suggest you read.

What is the best way to record phone/remote interviews?

What is the best way to record phone/remote interviews?

Neil
Hints and tips, academic transcription, research methods

We have a lot of experience in transcribing phone interviews and as technology has progressed over the last few years, it’s been easy to hear by the increasing overall quality of the recordings we receive. There is still very much a spectrum of recording methods however, so we thought it was a good time to share our experience of how to work best with your transcription company to get useful transcripts from these interviews.

Formatting transcripts for qualitative research

Formatting transcripts for qualitative research

Neil
academic transcription

I'm a big fan of Graham Gibbs' YouTube videos, which cover a wide range of issues related to qualitative research and research methods. Previously, I've discussed his overview video on "Doing transcription for qualitative research". Today I'm looking at "Types of transcription for qualitative research", which looks more specifically at levels of verbatim and formatting for qualitative research transcripts.

5 tips for keeping your qualitative data organised

Neil
academic transcription, Hints and tips, research methods

So you’ve just come back from a fieldwork trip, or you’ve got a long backlog of interviews that you’ve conducted for a qualitative research project. All of a sudden you realise you’ve got dozens of audio files, some field notes, some scraps of paper, and don’t even know where to begin on getting things organised to begin your qualitative analysis.

Through my own experience as a researcher, I have found myself in a situation where the sheer volume of data gathered can be a bit daunting, but being systematic from the beginning can help you feel a bit more in control. Here are five tips on getting started so that you can make the best of your data analysis.

Transcription as part of data preparation for research

Neil
academic transcription

Graham Gibbs at the University of Huddersfield has a number of very useful YouTube videos on research methods, particularly focusing on qualitative research. In this video, he discusses transcription for qualitative research and some of the issues involved in this. 

"Given the nature of transcription, why do it? The reason we do it is because usually we find it much easier to work with a transcript rather than a recording. […] For analysis purposes, people still find it easier to work with a transcript, despite the effort that goes into creating transcripts. The reason has to do with the fact that you can move around transcripts – you can mark it with a pencil; you can shuffle the pages very quickly and find the bits you want. You’ve got very quick, random access to what you want. You can remember bits because you’ve marked them very easily. […] I’m afraid that transcription is still the norm for anything that involves interviews or recordings."

Transcription: Imperatives for Qualitative Research

Neil
academic transcription

"What are key understandings and issues evident in the transcription literature between 1979 and 2009? and What are the implications of these for qualitative research?" This very interesting journal article seeks to answer these research questions, and illuminates some of the important aspects of transcription for qualitative researchers.

Abstract 
Transcription is a practice central to qualitative research, yet the literature that addresses transcription presents it as taken for granted in qualitative studies. In this article the author provides a review of three decades of literature on transcription between 1979 and 2009. The review establishes core understandings and issues that have informed the transcription literature, including the ways it is said that transcription is overlooked in qualitative research. Discussion of the literature raises the need for more empirical studies that examine transcription in qualitative research, and suggests specific questions that qualitative researchers might address in relation to transcription and its reporting.

Davidson, Christina Rush. "Transcription: Imperatives for qualitative research." International Journal of Qualitative Methods 8.2 (2009): 35:52.
How many qualitative interviews is enough?

How many qualitative interviews is enough?

Neil
academic transcription

This is a question that I think all qualitative researchers struggle with - how many interviews do you need to produce adequate, meaningful evidence? As a transcription company, we've dealt with projects with five interviews, and others with hundreds. There are certainly a lot of questions to consider, and Sarah Baker and Rosalind Edwards' very useful working paper aims to address these. Rosalind was interviewed for an NCRM podcast about this paper, which we've transcribed below for you.

Analysing your interviews

Analysing your interviews

Neil
academic transcription

This video provides a really useful overview of how to conduct qualitative analysis, by manually coding transcripts. Personally, I prefer to code transcripts in NVivo, but these instructions are a great starting point to getting to grips with doing this manually. I've transcribed the video and included the text below, so you have the option of either watching or reading.