Content Analysis of Words in Brief Descriptions

In this chapter, the authors describe their application of word-counting techniques to understand the perceptions and attitudes of American parents toward their adolescent children as revealed in written responses to a follow-up survey in the Family Lifestyles Project. They report that the simple word-counting techniques, which are relatively bias free, can help researchers concentrate often-confusing data into a more manageable form and. The techniques can be used for exploring central themes and for systematically comparing within and across groups.