Some Disadvantages of Content Analysis

Because content analysis is systematic, sufficient human resources must be committed to it and rigorously applied to it. This may mean, for some evaluation applications, that the benefits may not outweigh the cost of the resources. Moreover, while content analysis has safeguards against distortion of the evidence, evaluators must use judgment in coding the data. If the potential users of the results will be uneasy about the judgment-making process, content analysis may not be advisable. A different approach that does not convert text to categorical variables might be preferable. (See appendix I.)

Source: GAO (2013), Content Analysis: A Methodology for Structuring and Analyzing Written Material: PEMD-10.3.1, BiblioGov.