RECOUP/Transcription and translation

Issues around transcribing data

Transcribing Issues

Many projects will need to decide what to do with recorded interviews or focus-group discussions. Should interviews be transcribed in the full sense (that is, to provide an as accurate as possible, word-for-word written equivalent of the recording)? If so, should the whole interview be transcribed? These questions raise important issues. Some of the issues are technical; others have to do with translation; others have to do with resources; and others depend heavily on the purposes of the research. See the handout for more discussion on this.

Time: 30-45 minutes

Objectives:

• to clarify the meanings of ‘note-taking’ and ‘transcription’ through a worked example
• to help participants plan their data collections and research design in the knowledge of the issues of equipment, soft-ware, translation, costs and purposes that will arise in the management of recorded data

Preparation:

If you have a data projector and computer, add a pair of loudspeakers to make sure that participants can hear the audio clip. Otherwise you may need to copy the clip onto a CD to play in a CD-player.

Process:

Open the three versions of accounts of this section of the interview on your computer so that participants can hear the interview and read each version in turn. Alternatively, prepare the three versions as a handout, to be given to participants before they listen to the clip.

The 4-minute mpeg clip is from an interview of SS by RJ, as part of a project on pharmaceuticals that includes attempts to understand how drugs are used by medical personnel who attend women who give birth in their own homes in rural north India. You might want to play this clip (or parts of it) three times while showing the different levels of report and transcription. This will probably generate a lively discussion. If you want to take the opportunity to make decisions about your own project, the discussion might need 30 minutes; otherwise, 15 minutes might be sufficient.

Note the use of italics for the interviewer’s contributions; and the occasional insertion of the time in the interview (so that researchers can go back and listen again if they want to check on the accuracy of the transcription).

References

Gibbs, G. R. (2007). Analysing Qualitative Data. London: Sage, especially Chapter 2, 'Data Preparation'.

Issues around translation of data

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Singal, N., and Jeffery, R. (2008). Qualitative Research Skills Workshop: A Facilitator's Reference Manual, http://oer.educ.cam.ac.uk/wiki/RECOUP, Cambridge: RECOUP (Research Consortium on Educational Outcomes and Poverty, http://recoup.educ.cam.ac.uk/). CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. (original page)