Make sure you have reviewed the Introduction to Content Analysis before completing this assignment!

Note that I have not yet personally experimented much with using AI tools for content analysis, although it is likely to be a tool that anthropologists and other qualitative researchers increasingly rely on. You may need to modify my suggestions below to get to results that make sense. You are responsible for ensuring the quality of the final product and you must document any use of AI by sharing chat(s) used while working on the analysis. If you would like to do this assignment without AI tools, please complete WA#3: Interview Content Analysis (Option #1: Humans Only) instead.

Get Set Up

Choose at least 5 interviews that you would like to focus on for your research paper. You should use the interview(s) you conducted yourself as well as interviews conducted by your group members. I have added those to folders you can access here:

Interviews for Topic 1: Language Shift and Language MaintenanceLinks to an external site.
Interviews for Topic 2: Sustainability and Consumer ChoicesLinks to an external site.
Please note that I have indicated in the file name if the interviewee did not consent to having their interview responses input into online AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini. File names that begin “X NO AI” should not be input directly into any online AI chats. (If you sort the files by name, that should move all of the “X NO AI” files to the top or bottom of the list.)

Open a new Google Doc fileLinks to an external site., name it Coded Interviews – Your Name,, title it Coded Interviews – YourName, and copy and paste the complete text of each interview into that document.
Open a new chat with your AI tool of choice, most likely ChatGPTLinks to an external site. or Gemini. Links to an external site.

Note that you will share a copy of this chat as part of the assignment submission.
For easy access, you can rename the chat something like “Anth 206 Content Analysis” (On the left side with the chats listed, selected the three dots for the chat you are working with, then choose “Rename.”)

Use your AI chat to support your content analysis (see below) in whatever way you see fit, as long as interview transcripts labeled “no AI” are not input directly into the chat. You, the human, should be meaningfully involved in the process — I don’t want to see the whole assignment prompt copied into ChatGPT and the resulting text copied into your Google doc without any further changes. Some prompt ideas:

Put the text of interview transcripts with AI permission into the chatbot and ask for a list of codes that could be used for content analysis.
Ask the AI chatbot to find specific words or phrases that are repeated across multiple interview transcripts (those with AI permission); develop these into codes.
After coming up with codes on your own, ask the AI chatbot to scan transcripts with AI permission and suggest additional codes, or how to subdivide your codes further.
After identifying codes, ask the AI chatbot to find phrases or sentences in a transcript that should be labeled with that code.
After identifying codes on your own or with AI, ask the chatbot to suggest themes for organizing your codes (perhaps after inputting your research question as well).
After completing any of the work below on your own, ask the AI chatbot to suggest additional codes or alternative themes.

Content Analysis

In your Coded Interviews Google Doc, use the comment function to select important “chunks” of text in each interview (words, phrases, occasionally a full sentence) and assign codes to them.

Codes should be brief (a word or phrase) descriptions of topics that recur across interviews and/or are relevant to your research question.
You should have a minimum of about 15 codes to successfully complete this assignment, but a strong analysis will probably include 25-30 codes.
Because codes work best if they capture repeated information, often you need to revise or revisit your codes as you move through each interview.
Example of coded interview notesDownload Example of coded interview notes

To make sure I can see your comments and codes, click the blue Share button at the top right. Under General Access, you select “Anyone with the link” then change the role to “Editor.”
Open a new Google Doc fileLinks to an external site., ,, title it Content Analysis – YourName, and complete the next steps of the assignment, from start to finish, in that document. (You may copy and paste text that you want to use from your AI chat into this document as needed.)
Organize as many of your codes as possible into 4-6 themes, which you can think of as categories of related codes.

Label each theme and describe it with 1-2 complete sentences.
Under each theme, list the codes that are relevant and explain exactly what each code refers to. (There should be multiple codes for each theme, but some themes might have more codes than others.)
After all of your themes, create an alphabetical list of all of the codes used.
Example of organized codes and themesDownload Example of organized codes and themes

At the top of your Content Analysis doc, add a link to your Coded Interviews doc.
At the end of the document, include a link (or multiple links if multiple chat sessions were used) to share all of the AI interactions used in this assignment. Importantly, this link must be created after your interactions with the AI for this assignment are complete. Copy the link and paste it at the end of the References page of your main Google doc.

In Gemini, select the relevant chat from the left side if you are not already on it. Then scroll to the end of the chat and click Share & export > Share > select “Entire Chat.”
In ChatGPT, you can select Share from the three dot menu on the left sidebar with the chat name, or with a chat open, select the Share button from the top right corner.

What is the difference between codes and themes again?

Codes are more specific and concrete descriptions of the data, whereas themes come from interpretation of that data. Themes can be more abstract than codes and help to show the broader meaning and significance of the interviews. Another way to think of it is that the themes respond more directly to the research question you are trying to answer, which depends on your topic:

Topic 1 – Language Shift and Language Maintenance: How do bilingual/multilingual families and individuals in the U.S. experience language shift and language maintenance across generations?
Topic 2 – Sustainability and Consumer Choices: To what extent are people who care about environmental issues able to act on those beliefs through their personal consumption (i.e., buying and using consumer goods including but not limited to food)?

What to submit here:

To submit your work, click the blue Share button at the top right of Content Analysis doc. Under General Access, you select “Anyone with the link” then change the role to “Editor.” Then copy the link and paste it as your submission to this assignment.
Make sure that the Content Analysis doc includes:

a link to your Coded Interviews doc, and that sharing access is set to “Editor” for both Google Docs.
a link to the AI chat(s) used to complete this work

Criteria for Success

Examples

Example of coded interview notesDownload Example of coded interview notes
Example of organized codes and themesDownload Example of organized codes and themes

Grading

The Content Analysis assignment is worth 8% of your final grade. Note that this assignment must be submitted before you can move on to submit the Research Paper.

This assignment can be marked Complete (full points), Revision Needed (half points), or Incomplete (no points). See the Syllabus for details. If your paper is marked Revision Needed, you can revise and resubmit before submitting the Ethnographic Research Paper.

A Complete assignment will…

Be submitted as a Google Doc that represents the full history of your work on this assignment.
Include codes on at least 5 interviews completed by you and/or your classmates, with at least a total of 15 distinct codes used
Use codes to identify important/repeating ideas across all interviews
Organize codes into a minimum of 4 themes in a new document
Include a label and explanation for each theme and each code
Include a complete, alphabetical list of all codes used
Include to one or more AI chats that reflect the entire history of your use of that chatbot for this assignment.
Show evidence of your own thinking and editing of any content produced by AI.

A submission may be marked Revision Needed if…

Fewer than 5 interviews are included
Fewer than 15 codes are identified and labeled in the interview notes, or codes do not accurately capture information in the interviews
Fewer than 4 themes are identified, or themes do not organize codes in a clear way
Themes or codes are not clearly labeled and explained in the second document
The writing includes extensive grammatical errors or stylistic issues that make it very difficult for me to understand the ideas you want to convey.

A submission may be marked Incomplete if…

The work submitted is not your own
The assignment is missing
The submission does not follow instructions for preparing this assignment (e.g., inclusion of 2 documents, use of comments for coding, organization of codes into themes)

Late Work and Revision/Resubmission

This assignment has a Thursday due date, but I will accept work without penalty through a weekend “grace period” — until 8:30 a.m. on Monday. There is no penalty on work submitted during the grace period, although I will usually grade on-time assignments first.

Beyond the grace period, each student may submit a maximum of two late writing project assignments during the term. Each late assignment is worth half credit, and late assignments cannot be revised/resubmitted. Project assignments like this one may be submitted late up until submission of the Ethnographic Research.

Writing project assignments that are attempted (before the end of the grace period) but do not meet requirements or learning outcomes will be marked “Revision Needed” and graded for half credit. However, the expectation is that you will revise and resubmit such work; if it meets requirements after revision, you will earn full credit. Revisions on project assignments like this one may be submitted late up until submission of the Ethnographic Research Paper.

Academic Honesty

Work submitted for this class should reflect your own learning. For this assignment, you are expected to create codes and themes based on your own reading and understanding of the interview content. Your use of AI to support this work needs to be documented fully, by sharing any chats used to complete this assignment.