How Good A Shopper Am I? Conceptualizing Teenage Girls' Perceived Shopping Competence

Academy of Marketing Science Review,  2006  by Palan, Kay M

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The coding process involved several stages. In the initial stage, one of the primary researchers independently read each verbatim transcript to identify useful units of meaning within the data--this process began before data collection was complete, which enabled the addition or tweaking of interview questions, consistent with the grounded theory approach. Each response to interview questions was treated as a separate "unit of analysis" during this process. Notes about the basic ideas and concepts reflected in the interviews were made during this stage.

The second stage of the coding process involved giving order and meaning to the notes created during the first stage. Specifically, the same researcher searched for varied and discrete meanings among the units of analysis, processes referred to as concept identification and categorization (Strauss and Corbin 1990). The researcher then compared concepts against one another to discover similarities among concepts; this allowed some concepts to be grouped together under higher-order, more abstract concepts, or categories. These categories were next developed into a coding guide (see Table 1) that was then applied to the data during the process of "open coding" (Strauss and Corbin 1990).

face=+Bold; Table 1Coded Categories and Subcategoriesface=-Bold;

During the open coding process, all of the interview data were coded (using the coding guide) in an effort to re-explore the data for alternative interpretations or concepts. The coding guide was adapted as needed throughout this process to reflect the full scope of variation within the data. Both of the primary researchers coded the data, meeting together frequently to discuss the meanings of and relationships among the concepts and categories.

In order to establish trustworthiness and dependability of the data coding process, three additional individuals (two male and one female, all unfamiliar with the research purpose) used the coding guide to open code 10 of the informant transcripts. Intercoder reliability was calculated using the Rust and Cooil (1994) proportional reduction in loss (PRL) measure. This reliability measure is directly comparable to Cronbach's alpha. PRLs ranged from .89 to .91.

After the open coding process, the third stage of analysis was axial coding, in which the primary researchers continued to interpret the data in order to relate the categories of data that emerged during the open coding process to higher-level categories. In particular, connections among categories and their respective sub-categories and patterns among those connections were sought by examining the categories against a backdrop of definitions of competence from the psychology literature. This deductive process is consistent with axial coding processes (Flick 2002; Strauss and Corbin 1990). What emerged from this process is a detailed picture of teenage girls' felt shopping competence.

face=+Bold; Interpretive Findingsface=-Bold; Excerpts from the informant interviews are used to illuminate the emergent themes associated with each of the three coding categories listed in Table 1. While these themes are presented as discrete ideas, it should be noted that informants more typically related information about the themes in a highly intermingled fashion.