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This content will become publicly available on June 1, 2024

Title: Evaluating the Coverage and Depth of Latent Dirichlet Allocation Topic Model in Comparison with Human Coding of Qualitative Data: The Case of Education Research
Fields in the social sciences, such as education research, have started to expand the use of computer-based research methods to supplement traditional research approaches. Natural language processing techniques, such as topic modeling, may support qualitative data analysis by providing early categories that researchers may interpret and refine. This study contributes to this body of research and answers the following research questions: (RQ1) What is the relative coverage of the latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic model and human coding in terms of the breadth of the topics/themes extracted from the text collection? (RQ2) What is the relative depth or level of detail among identified topics using LDA topic models and human coding approaches? A dataset of student reflections was qualitatively analyzed using LDA topic modeling and human coding approaches, and the results were compared. The findings suggest that topic models can provide reliable coverage and depth of themes present in a textual collection comparable to human coding but require manual interpretation of topics. The breadth and depth of human coding output is heavily dependent on the expertise of coders and the size of the collection; these factors are better handled in the topic modeling approach.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2219271
NSF-PAR ID:
10444357
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Machine Learning and Knowledge Extraction
Volume:
5
Issue:
2
ISSN:
2504-4990
Page Range / eLocation ID:
473 to 490
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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