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Theme and Category Development in ATLAS.ti
Dr. Susanne Friese

In principle there are three ways to begin coding. be sorted and structured. The code list is based
You either start with a list of codes or you develop on the children and happiness sample project (see
your code list from scratch - or use a mixture of here). The version of the project we are using here
the two. Initial ideas for coding might directly contains 46 codes related to positive and negative
emerge from the data you read, or can be derived effects of being a parent. These code labels are
from research questions, theoretical models, partly directly taken from the words the respon-
literature or from an interview guideline. When dents used and thus are very close to the data.
you start coding, the how descriptive or abstract The frequency of each code word is very low.
a code is does not play a role; codes may be
descriptive or already conceptual. The important
point is to mark those things that you find inter-
esting and to name them.

Reading further, you will very likely notice a few

things which are similar to some issues you have
Figure 1: Building categories from the bottom up
noticed before. These may either fit under an
already existing label, or you may need to rename What often happens at this stage is that analysts
a label to subsume the already coded and the use code families to collect descriptive code labels
new data segment. Even if the term is not yet without further conceptualizing. This is not a good
the perfect code label, it does not matter. You can idea. It leads to endlessly long code lists that are
continue to collect more similar data segments of no use in querying the data in the next phase
and later, when you review them, it will be easier of the analysis. Below we will make use of code
to think of better and more fitting code labels. At families (code groups) as little helpers only.
first you will generate lots of new codes; in time
you will reuse more and more of those codes that If we look through the list of codes in the Code
you already have. If this is the case, you have Manager, it can quickly be noticed that there are
reached your first saturation point. In technical positive and negative effects of parenting. There-
terms, you will drag and drop existing codes from fore, all positive effects are grouped into a code
the Code Manager or Navigator onto the data seg- family called ‘positive effects’. Now we can apply
ments. As soon as you reach this point, it is time a global filter with a right click on the code fam-
to review your coding system. ily (Win version) to focus on the reduced list of 22
codes. In the Mac version, just click on the code
group to filter the list of codes.
Developing categories
Based on the codes shown in Figure 1, we would
like to demonstrate how an initial list of codes can

Newsletter February 2016   © Copyright 2016 ATLAS.ti Scientific Software Development GmbH 
 add a prefix to all of these labels, so that they are
united under a common heading. I suggest to use
the prefix ‘effects pos’ and for the second list ‘ef-
fects neg’, so that the effects of parenting codes
are sorted underneath each other later in the com-
plete list of codes. The last thing that is missing is
the main category label. As we built the category
from the bottom up, it does not yet exist.

Figure 2: Presorting the list of codes / code family • Create a new code with the name EFFECTS POS.
set as global filter (Windows version) Highlight all codes and give them a color.

Looking at the reduced list of codes, it is now easy • Take out the global filter (Win version): right
to see that a number of codes refer to personal click on the code family, select Remove global
growth. Personal growth already exists as a code. filter. Click on the button Show all Codes.
So we can merge those codes that are similar into
Voilà, there is your new category with sub codes:
this code. For this, do as follows:

Right click on the code ‘personal growth’ and

select Merge Codes. From the list that pops up
select all codes that relate to personal growth.
This reduces the list to 14 codes. The personal
growth code now contains 8 quotations. In the
Mac version drag the codes to ‘personal growth’
and select the merge option. You do this for one
code at a time.

Figure 4: Building a category from the bottom up

(Windows and Mac versions)

Developing sub-codes
Figure 3: Merging codes in the Mac version
The goal in developing subcategories is to achieve
Look at the remaining codes. Other codes you can a good description of heterogeneity and variance
merge are those related to fulfilment, richer life, in the data material. We will again use an example
positive emotions and improved relationships (pa- based on the children and happiness project
rental and marital). If the more conceptual name (LINK). This time, the data segments have been
does not yet exist, rename one of the codes with “lumped” under only a few codes. No attempt has
the conceptual term and then begin the merge yet been made to separate the various aspects.
process. This reduces the filtered list to 5 codes.

As these code labels would still appear all over

the place in the alphabetic code list, we need to

 © Copyright 2016 ATLAS.ti Scientific Software Development GmbH   Newsletter February 2016
 Looking at the extracted terms helps to concep-
tualize them further. ‘Greatest joy in life’ might
be subsumed under ‘richer life’. Would not trade it
for anything, worthwhile and rewarding could be
summarized under ‘worthwhile trade-off’; life is
meaningful, I feel fulfilled can be integrated into
Figure 5: What do to if you are a “lumper” fulfilment, and so on. The aim is to look at the
When you begin to code, you may not know which bandwidths of issues mentioned and to come up
aspects are salient and provide good reasons for with a label that best describes the most similar
forming a group of their own, so it is easier to col- ones.
lect the various aspects under a main theme first.
But before there is too much coding, you need to After you have decided which subcategories you
begin to sub-divide it. I will explain the procedure want to use, you need to enter them into ­ATLAS.ti
based on the code “children are hard work but…”. and then recode the data. In order for the sub-
codes to show up under the main code, we need
Double click on the code “children are hard work to add prefixes again and rename the main cat-
but…” and read through the quotations. In the egory name, as follows:
Mac version, select the code in the Code Manager
and read the quotation in the pane below the code • HARD WORK BUT…
list. If you prefer reading the quotations in an edi- • Hard work but: fulfilment
tor, select the code and then the option Output /
Quotations for Selected Code (s). Your task is to • Hard work but: richer life
develop subcategories based on the major theme. • Hard work but: worthwhile trade-off
After reading through a few quotations, you are • Hard work but: positive emotions
likely to notice quotations that refer to the same
aspect and others that describe another facet of Click F5 to resort the list (Windows). Now it is a
the main theme. When you are at this point, start good time to colour the codes of this newly devel-
collecting these aspects. One option is to write oped category. All quotations are still contained
them down on a piece of paper and run a tally. in the main category code. The next step is to
Figure 6 shows my notes. Given sufficient enough distribute them to the sub codes (Figure 7).
screen space, another option is to type your ideas
into a memo and use this memo later on to cre- Double click on the main category code HARD
ate the list of sub codes (Windows version, see: WORK BUT… and select the first quotation.
‘importing codes’ under Help).
Read it and decide into which subcategory you
want to move it. Select the appropriate sub code
in the Code Manager and drag it onto the main
code in the margin area, thus replacing it. Another
option is to use the code list from the navigator
pane.

Figure 6: Noticing and collecting in the process of

developing subcategories

Newsletter February 2016   © Copyright 2016 ATLAS.ti Scientific Software Development GmbH 
 an efficient code system looks like – efficient in
terms of being able to utilize the more advanced
analytic tools of the software, you can name
known categories and sub codes already in the
same way as for instance shown in Figure 9. If you
need to complement the code list, you can apply
the procedures as described above. The structure
of the final code list will be the same, no matter
whether you start inductively or deductively. As
a reference example, please take a look at the
Figure 7: Coding on: replacing the main theme code Children & Happiness sample project and open the
with the sub code (Windows) Code Manager.

Additional resources
ATLAS.ti Mac and Windows sample project. Down-
load from here.

Video tutorial on building an efficient coding sys-

tem (11 minutes). View here.

Figure 8: Coding on in the Mac version Video tutorial on building categories (18 minutes).
There is no need to leave the main category code View here.
attached to the segment. It just clutters up the
margin. It is easy to collect the quotations in one
main category via a code family / code group later. About the author
For now the aim is to empty the main category Dr. Susanne Friese started working with computer
code and fill the subcategories with content (see software for qualitative data analysis in 1992. Her
Figure 9). You may need to adjust the length of initial contact with CAQDAS tools was from 1992
some quotations or create new ones. If you come to 1994, as she was employed at QualisResearch in
across a quotation that you find difficult to sort the United States. In following years, she worked
into any of the existing subcategories, leave them with the CAQDAS Project in England (1994–1996),
in the main category. where she taught classes on The Ethnograph
and Nud*ist. Two additional software programs,
­MAXQDA and ATLAS.ti, followed shortly. Susanne
has accompanied numerous projects around the
world in a consulting capacity, authored didactic
Figure 9: Sub codes filled with content materials and is one of the principal contributors
to the ATLAS.ti User’s Manual, sample projects
and other documentations. In 2012 (Second edi-
Conclusion tion in 2014) her book “Qualitative Data Analysis
with ATLAS.ti” was published by SAGE Publica-
In this article, I have shown the process of build-
tions.
ing categories and sub codes when approaching
analysis inductively. The process is different if
you chose a deductive approach. Knowing how

 © Copyright 2016 ATLAS.ti Scientific Software Development GmbH   Newsletter February 2016