Quantitative Content Analysis: Its Use in Technical Communication

Quantitative content analysis can enrich research in technical communication by identifying the frequency of thematic or rhetorical patterns and then exploring their relationship through inferential statistics. Over the last decade, the field has published few content analyses, and several of these applications have been qualitative, diluting the method's inherent rigor. This paper describes the versatility of quantitative content analysis and offers a broader application for its use in the field. This discussion frames two original case studies that illustrate the design variability that content analysis offers researchers.