Journal of Nursing & Care

Small is Insightful: A Method for the Microanalysis of Behaviour and Communication

Abstract

Colin R Griffiths

The purpose of this article is to describe a method of examining observational data that is obtained through video recording, which allows for the identification of precise micro behaviors. The article describes the use of video as a data gathering tool, the associated transcription of the data into narrative format and the analytic method. Both verbal and non-verbal micro data were obtained and the capturing and analysis of both are discussed in detail. The data was composed of micro-behaviors and micro-communications of two communication dyads both of which consisted of one person with profound intellectual and multiple disability and one non-disabled teacher or nurse. Classic Glaserian grounded theory was used to analyse the narrative data. The method enabled the identification of behaviors of the participants, their communications, the sequences in which they occurred and the interrelationships at a micro level. Taken as a whole the method can reveal previously hidden information about what individuals do and how they behave in dyads and in groups and this has applications in nursing, special needs education and other fields in which human interaction is paramount.