Choosing the Right Transcription Approach: Key Considerations and Best Practices (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Okay, so finally, how to decide which approach to transcription to adopt. I already mentioned in the previous video that it will depend on your study. And here, before I even begin, I want you to look at these two quotes. They are extremely important. So the first one says that the level of transcription should complement the level of analysis. The level of transcription should complement the level of analysis. This is extremely important. And the second one is what to include should always be driven by the research question that the analysis attempts to answer. So again, these two quotes, there is nothing more important in terms of deciding how to transcribe. So I really want you to look at it, to memorize it, to put it in a frame and put it over your bed. Just remember these two points, because they extremely accurately summarize the whole approach, the whole reasoning for what kind of approach to follow. So essentially, transcription is a very selective process. I mentioned before the positivist view that it can be very objective, the transcription process can be objective. I don't agree with it and many would agree with me that it's not. So again, I'll share some interesting literature about it. But basically, transcription is a very selective process. You will never be objective. You will have to make plenty of decisions. Some refer to transcription as translation, because essentially it is translating from sound and video to text. So it's translation. And translation as well is a very selective process. It's never the same. So two transcribers or two translators may do the same job in quite different ways. So what is recommended is that you should always be very transparent about your choices. That's the first thing. So whatever you choose to do, you should be very transparent about your choice. So explain why exactly you chose this particular approach. And as I said before, everything will depend on your study and as the quotes that I just shared say, it will reflect the level of analysis. So what do you want to do later with your transcription? Are you going to analyze all the pauses? Are you going to analyze the turn taken if you have more than one speaker? Are you really going to go into much, much detail of each stutter, of the words maybe they use, so of the length of individual pauses? Are you going to need that? Or do you just want to listen to their story, to report on what they said? So which one is it? It's very important. Don't feel like you have to follow this very detailed approach. Don't feel like you have to indicate the length of each pause in brackets as some people do. And I urge you to really think about it and make a strong argument, a strong case for whichever way you choose. So sometimes your supervisors will suggest, for example, that you should choose another approach. Again, don't be afraid to say no. So my supervisors did suggest when I was doing my PhD that I should be using this more detailed approach, like I said, so individual pauses and the length and the umms and stutters and everything. And I did some reading and I read Quayle, so again I will refer you to that book. There is not that much about transcription, but Quayle also says that essentially it will depend on what you want to do with the data, what you want to do in your study. If it's going to be a conversational analysis, and if it is then you would know by now, of course, then you will also know that you need much more detail. If you are interested in people's views, if you're going to ask them about their experiences at school, their experiences at work, if you're going to investigate migrants, teachers and ask what they think about a given topic, then arguably it's very unlikely that you will need that extremely detailed approach to transcribing. Again, as I said, you may be using common sense, so you may be indicating some pauses if you think they are extremely important. If somebody pauses for, you know, five seconds, it may indicate that it may be a difficult topic for them, they may simply not know the answer, so it will depend on you and nobody will criticize you for being selective, for sometimes indicating pauses, sometimes not indicating pauses, because your argument will be that you're not that interested in the way they say certain things, but rather you're interested in the content of what they say, if you select, if you choose this approach to transcription. And finally, I mentioned before that your approach to transcription will also have an influence on the process of member check-in. I've discussed member check-in before and I will discuss it again when I talk about validity of the interview data, but essentially member check-in is sending the transcripts. One of the ways to member check is to send your transcripts to your participants. And as Cveil reports in one of his studies, he had a very detailed approach to transcription, so it had all the pauses and all the stutters and everything, and he sent that transcript to one of his participants, a professional teacher, and the participant requested that it be changed. So the participant believed that the way it looked, he didn't like the way it looked on paper because it appeared so chaotic and not fluent, and requested it to be changed. So he believed it doesn't look professional, doesn't put him in professional light. So just remember that these are also details to consider. If you have any questions regarding transcription, feel free to ask me these questions, but I hope that with what I have told you, coupled with the literature I shared, I hope that this idea, this topic of transcription will become much clearer to you now.