title: It's a sentence, not a word: insights from a keyword analysis in cancer communication.
abstract: Keyword analysis has been championed as a methodological option for expanding the insights that can be extracted from qualitative datasets using various properties available in qualitative software. Intrigued by the pioneering applications of Clive Seale and his colleagues in this regard, we conducted keyword analyses for word frequency and "keyness" on a qualitative database of interview transcripts from a study on cancer communication. We then subjected the results from these operations to an in-depth contextual inquiry by resituating word instances within their original speech contexts, finding that most of what had initially appeared as group variations broke down under close analysis. In this article, we illustrate the various threads of analysis, and explain how they unraveled under closer scrutiny. On the basis of this tentative exercise, we conclude that a healthy skepticism for the benefits of keyword analysis within a qualitative investigative process seems warranted.
authors.affiliation: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
authors.forename: Kimberly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.affiliation: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada sally.thorne@nursing.ubc.ca.
authors.forename: Sally
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Thorne
authors.affiliation: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
authors.forename: John L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Oliffe
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003142:Communication; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology*; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012107:Research Design; D009626:Terminology as Topic
keywords: cancer; communication; data collection and management; gender; interviews; research design; research, qualitative