Question

You're having an animated discussion with your future boss. They want to know why they should bother learning qualitative research, when SPSS can do so much with a click of a button. Please explain the pros and cons of the content analysis and force field analysis. When should we use these?

Answer 1

Answer- The pros and cons of the content analysis and force field analysis can be described as follows-

1- Content analysis- Content analysis can be described as a research tool which is used to decide the presence of certain concepts of words in texts. The method of content analysis is very helpful in analyzing the qualitative data in a systematic and reliable manner in order to make generalizations according to the interest of the researcher. Content analysis has some advantages as well as some disadvantages. The pros and cons of the content analysis can be described with the help of the following points.

Pros of the Content analysis

1- Content analysis can easily get at the social interaction by looking directly at communication through texts.

2- Both qualitative and quantitative operations can be allowed by content analysis.

3- Content analysis identifies the texts and provides the cultural and historical awareness overtime.

4- The main purpose of the content analysis is to interpret texts for the development of the expert systems.

Cons of the Content analysis

1- Content analysis consumes a lot of time.

2- When it is used to achieve a higher level of interpretation, the chances of errors are also increased.

3- Content analysis becomes subtractive while dealing with complicated texts.

4- Sometimes it becomes quite difficult to automate or computarize the content analysis.

Force Field Analysis- Force field analysis is an effective and well designed decision making technique that helps a person to make difficult and challenging decisions. The technique of force field analysis was developed by Kurt Lewin in 1940s. First it was used in the field of Psychology but today, the force field analysis is used in diferent areas like business, for making and communicating decisions etc. Like content analysis, force field analysis also have some pros and cons which are-

Pros of Force field analysis

1- Force field analysis provides a visual summary of supporting and opposing factors of an idea, with all the collected data related to a decision.

2- It helps us to identify the problems of decision making which make us to take certain action in order to reduce them.

3- The diagram of force field analysis can be used as a visual aid to simplify the communication process among people and to eliminate the communication barriers.

Cons of Force field analysis

1- A full involvement of each group member is required to achieve an effective analysis which is very difficult.

2- The force field analysis may cause a conflict among group members because some support the decision while some do not.

3- Due to less participation of all members, gaining a complete picture of the driving forces and restraining forces is very complicated.