Research

Literature & Research Information

Data Service & Archiving

Data Collection
Statistical Analysis Methods

Text Analysis

Classification of Occupations

Computer-assisted Content Analysis

Open-ended Questions

Text and Data Collection

ZUMA Information System (ZIS)
Special Surveys

Research & Development

Link Collection SocioGuide

Text Analysis Research

Basic research in computer-assisted text analysis is not independent from the other goals of the institute, i.e. the provision of services for as well as the consulting of the research community. In that sense, the research on text analysis methods feeds in to the services offered by GESIS-ZUMA. At the same time, the practices and requirements of the researchers making use of the GESIS-ZUMA services play an active role in the shaping of the research conducted.

The importance and application of text analysis has increased dramatically in the last years with the demand for methods and software for the analysis of text data as well as the need for consultation being steadily on te increase. Two reasons which have naturally played a crucial role for this consequence are:

text data are an important primary source of information for a wide range of research questions and investigations in the social sciences
texts are nowadays very often already in machine-readable form, e.g. as electronic publishing products, Internet surveys, CD-ROMs, etc.

As a reaction to the present situation text analysis at GESIS-ZUMA concerns both theoretical issues as well as the development of text analysis tools. Software development is not independent from the further development and improvement of the text analysis methods.

Research in text analysis at GESIS-ZUMA involves the broadening of computer-assisted content analysis by means of integrating linguistic theories and computational linguistic methods. The aim is to define and test such procedures which the different analysis requirements support and integrate them in text analysis for the social sciences.

In our methodological report 2002/02 (in German only) we published summaries of selected applications of quantitative computer-assisted content analysis. This report is the basis for an information system which we will develop and make available in the internet in order to provide a data base of content analysis applications.

In order to gain an overview of not only the currently available text analysis tools but also of the technical and methodological developments in the field, we have reviewed in detail 15 quantitative and qualitative oriented text analysis software. The results of the review are documented (in English) in a book ZUMA-Nachrichten Spezial and a ZUMA Arbeitsbericht (report).

List of selected publications on text analysis at GESIS-ZUMA