COM 633: Content Analysis CATA

1. COM 633: Content AnalysisCATA Kimberly A. Neuendorf, Ph.D. Cleveland State University Fall 2010

2. COM 633 Fall 2010CATA Presentations • Kate & Julie: LIWC & PCAD • Jen & Diane: LIWC & MCCALite? • Fran & Dongwoo: CATPAC & WordStat • Jon & Elizabeth: Yoshikoder & General Inquirer • Joe: Diction

3. CATA: Computer Aided Text Analysis • Why might you want to use CATA rather than traditional human-coding techniques? • CATA programs typically have been written by researchers with a specific need; thus, their utility is often limited. • Online search and acquisition opportunities have made CATA easier, more attractive (e.g., Nexis)

4. Purposes of CATA • 1. Descriptive—e.g., word counts • Modell project, using: • VBPro, M. Mark Miller, 1980s software • 2. Coding of Open-ended Survey Responses • WordStat, SimStat adjunct program • (Provalis Research; Normand Peladeau)

5. Purposes of CATA Standard Dictionaries: Most of the following applications use internal “standard” dictionaries: • 3. Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Measures • General Inquirer, Philip Stone, 1966 • Harvard IV Dictionary • MCCALite, Don McTavish & Ellen Pirro • 116 “idea categories” are applied to multiple characters in a script • CATPAC, Joseph Woelfel • Semantic “neural” networks—no actual dictionary

6. Purposes of CATA • 4. Psychometric Measures (or “Thematic Content Analysis”—Smith) • General Inquirer • e.g., Lasswell Values Dictionary • 5. Clinical Psychological/Psychiatric Diagnoses • PCAD, Louis Gottschalk & Robert Bechtel • Computer version of Gottschalk’s earlier human-coded schemes devised to provide alternative diagnostic techniques

7. Purposes of CATA • 6. Verbal Style or Communicator Style • LIWC, Pennebaker, Booth, & Francis • e.g., positive emotions, cognitive processes • Also includes many linguistic measures and some that might be used as psychometrics • Diction, Rod Hart • Computer application of Hart’s earlier human-coded schemes aimed at measuring characteristics of political speech—e.g., aggression, cooperation, ambivalence

8. Purposes of CATA • 7. Authorship Attribution • Most use simple counts of letters or words to attribute authorship (e.g., the Federalist papers; Raymond Chandler; Shakespeare) • Basic computer/word processing programming is sufficient

9. Measurement in CATA Three choices: Custom Dictionaries Complicated, time-consuming Standard Dictionaries A task of matching one’s conceptualization to someone else’s operationalization—sometimes a scavenger hunt Similar to the challenge of finding an appropriate scale for a survey “Emergent” Coding—outcome based on language patterns that emerge (e.g., CATPAC)

10. Quantitative CATA Programs

11. Quantitative CATA Programs

12. Validity and CATA • Validation part of development of CATA system (e.g., Lin et al., 2009—genres of online discussion threads) • Validation of thematic CA (psychometrics) against self-report—rare and uncertain (e.g., McClelland et al., 1992) • A comprehensive model for assessing content, external, and predictive validity when using CATA—Short, Broberg, Cogliser, Brigham (2010) as applied to “entrepreneurial orientation”: • Content validity—an inductive/deductive combo • External validity—use multiple sampling frames • Predictive validity—measure non-CATA variables that should relate

13. Validity of Standard Dictionaries Trusting the Standard Dictionary—an issue of face validity Few CATA programs reveal the full dictionary lists (e.g., Diction, General Inquirer) None reveal the full algorithm (including disambiguation (e.g., well, pot, leaves)) None account for negation Construct and Criterion Validity Rod Hart’s Diction—”normed” rather than validated Gottschalk and Bechtel’s PCAD—validated against standard psychiatric diagnoses

14. Quantitative CATA Programs

15. Yoshikoder

16. About Yoshikoder • Created by Will Lowe at Harvard’s Department of Government • Can be downloaded free at www.yoshikoder.org • A cross-platform, multi-lingual CATA program • Must run one case at a time • Assumes the researcher will create dictionaries • Can import external dictionaries • Exports results into Excel

17. Yoshikoder: KWIC and Concordance

18. Yoshikoder: Dictionary Report

19. WordStat

20. About WordStat • Created by Normand Peladeau, as part of the SimStat suite for quantitative data analysis (a counterpart to SPSS) • Must be run as part of SimStat • Particularly suited to analyzing open-ended responses, in that data set typically includes both numeric and textual variables—which can immediately be crosstabulated • The “standard” dictionaries that are included are incomplete and should be avoided • Also includes KWIC

21. The WordStat Interface (within SimStat)

23. Selection of Independent & Dependent Variables—Including Textual Variable

24. Standard WordStat “Dictionaries”

25. Breakdown of very limited WordStat “Dictionary”

26. WordStat Output: Word counts

27. WordStat Output: Dendogram

28. WordStat Output: Crosstab with bar graph

29. WordStat Output: Crosstab and 3D representation

30. WordStat Output: KWIC

31. General Inquirer (PC/MAC version)

32. About General Inquirer • Created by Philip Stone in the Department of Social Relations at Harvard in the 1960s—on mainframe for many years • The current version combines the "Harvard IV-4" dictionary content-analysis categories, the "Lasswell" dictionary content-analysis categories, and five categories based on the social cognition work of Semin and Fiedler, making for 182 categories (dictionaries) in all

33. The General Inquirer (PC) Interface • Input and output files must be named • Two choices: Tags (application of dictionaries) & Words

34. General Inquirer Output: Tags (data file that may easily be exported to Excel & SPSS) First row of each set is the ‘r’ (raw count) form of the output. This corresponds to frequencies. Second row of each set is the ‘s’ (scaled count) form of the output. This corresponds to percentages (of total).

35. General Inquirer Output: Words

36. PCAD

37. About PCAD • Developed by Gottschalk & Bechtel, using scales developed by Gottschalk & Gleser for human-coding in 1960s • Diagnostic—assesses one text at a time • Intended for naturally-occurring speech or writing, minimum 80 words • Measures states of neuropsychiatric interest such as: • Anxiety • Hostility • Cognitive impairment • Depression • Schizophrenia • Achievement Strivings • Hope

38. The PCAD Interface

39. PCAD Interface-2

40. PCAD Output: 4 Types(Clauses, Summaries, Analyses, Diagnoses)

41. PCAD Output: Analyses

42. PCAD Output: Diagnoses

43. LIWC

44. About LIWC • Created by Pennebaker, Booth, & Francis • “Looks at how people write & their state of mind” • Intended to measure both affective and cognitive constructs • 84 Output Variables (standard dictionaries): • 17 Standard linguistic dimensions(e.g., number of pronouns) • 25 Word categories (e.g., “psychological constructs – affect, cognition”) • 10 Time categories(e.g.“space, motion”) • 19 Personal concerns (e.g., “home”) James W. Pennebaker & Martha E. Francis

45. LIWC Dictionaries (dimensions) with sample wordshttp://www.liwc.net/descriptiontable1.php

46. The LIWC Interface

47. LIWC Output: Data Matrix (Each row is a case/text, each column a dictionary)

48. Diction

49. About Diction • Created by Roderick P. Hart, University of Texas, originally for the purpose of analyzing political discourse • To measure “semantic features”, uses a series of 31 standard dictionaries and five “Master Variables” (scales constituted of combinations of the 31): • Activity • Optimism • Certainty • Realism • Commonality • Users can create custom dictionaries in addition to standard dictionaries. • The program can accept individual or multiple passages.

50. The Diction Interface