Unless I am missunderstanding something, I think the term relative frequencies under "Word Trends: Multiple Documents" is misleading. The term "relative frequency", especially when used in contrast to "absolute frequency" is commonly understood as meaning "relative to the total count", i.e. in the case of word trends with multiple documents, relative frequency would commonly be understood as the frequency of a particular word relative to the total number of words in that document. When you select ""Relative frequencies" in MaxQDA, however, what you get is the frequency of that word relative to the total frequency of the other words selected words. This is counter intuitive and a rather unusual use case. I would suggest that this might more adequately be called something like "word frequency ratio".
The MaxQDA manual is also misleading when it states "Both the absolute and relative frequencies refer to the respective section" as it appears to confirm the common usage of relative in the sense of relative to the total number of words in that section.
My question: Is there any way of showing the relative frequency of the word in relation to the total number of words in the respective segment? I would say that this is what users most commonly need when comparing word frequencies between documents or documents sets. (Because you can't compare the abolute frequencies unless the documents/ sets are about. the same size, so you want to standardize across documents/sets by dividing by the number of words in each document/set.)
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Khaled Alostathposted
24 days ago
Admin
Dear Christoph,
The "relative frequency" in MAXQDA, showing a word's frequency relative to the total selected words, is useful for comparing word prominence within a focused subset, like keywords in a theme.
For manual calculation of relative frequency by total words, you export word frequency data via the export options in the Word Frequencies or MAXDictio module (e.g., Excel format). After calculating outside MAXQDA, you can re-import results as document variables for further analysis or visualization within MAXQDA.
So, calculations are done outside, but results can be imported and visualized inside MAXQDA.
Hope this answers your questions.
Kind regards, Khaled
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C
Christoph Haugposted
about 1 month ago
Any answer?
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C
Christoph Haugposted
about 2 months ago
”Currently, the "relative frequency" in MAXQDA refers to the frequency of a word relative to the total frequency of selected words”
Could you give me an example where this way of calculating relative frequencies might be useful?
” you may need to manually calculate the relative frequency by exporting the word frequency data and dividing the frequency of each word by the total number of words in the respective document or segment.”
Do you mean I need to do the calculation outside of MaxQDA? How do I export those numbers?
And how do I re-import the results of the calculations? Or are you saying this can not be processed/visualized in MaxQDA at all and needs to be done entirely outside of MaxQDA?
0 Votes
Khaled Alostathposted
about 2 months ago
Admin
Dear Haug,
I understand your concern.
Currently, the "relative frequency" in MAXQDA refers to the frequency of a word relative to the total frequency of selected words, not the total number of words in a document.
To achieve the comparison you're looking for, you may need to manually calculate the relative frequency by exporting the word frequency data and dividing the frequency of each word by the total number of words in the respective document or segment.
If you wish to add this as a future function and feedback about your experience, you may submit it via this link: https://www.maxqda.com/maxqda-feedback
Unless I am missunderstanding something, I think the term relative frequencies under "Word Trends: Multiple Documents" is misleading. The term "relative frequency", especially when used in contrast to "absolute frequency" is commonly understood as meaning "relative to the total count", i.e. in the case of word trends with multiple documents, relative frequency would commonly be understood as the frequency of a particular word relative to the total number of words in that document. When you select ""Relative frequencies" in MaxQDA, however, what you get is the frequency of that word relative to the total frequency of the other words selected words. This is counter intuitive and a rather unusual use case. I would suggest that this might more adequately be called something like "word frequency ratio".
The MaxQDA manual is also misleading when it states "Both the absolute and relative frequencies refer to the respective section" as it appears to confirm the common usage of relative in the sense of relative to the total number of words in that section.
My question: Is there any way of showing the relative frequency of the word in relation to the total number of words in the respective segment? I would say that this is what users most commonly need when comparing word frequencies between documents or documents sets. (Because you can't compare the abolute frequencies unless the documents/ sets are about. the same size, so you want to standardize across documents/sets by dividing by the number of words in each document/set.)
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4 Comments
Khaled Alostath posted 24 days ago Admin
Dear Christoph,
The "relative frequency" in MAXQDA, showing a word's frequency relative to the total selected words, is useful for comparing word prominence within a focused subset, like keywords in a theme.
For manual calculation of relative frequency by total words, you export word frequency data via the export options in the Word Frequencies or MAXDictio module (e.g., Excel format). After calculating outside MAXQDA, you can re-import results as document variables for further analysis or visualization within MAXQDA.
So, calculations are done outside, but results can be imported and visualized inside MAXQDA.
Hope this answers your questions.
Kind regards,
Khaled
0 Votes
Christoph Haug posted about 1 month ago
Any answer?
0 Votes
Christoph Haug posted about 2 months ago
”Currently, the "relative frequency" in MAXQDA refers to the frequency of a word relative to the total frequency of selected words”
Could you give me an example where this way of calculating relative frequencies might be useful?
” you may need to manually calculate the relative frequency by exporting the word frequency data and dividing the frequency of each word by the total number of words in the respective document or segment.”
Do you mean I need to do the calculation outside of MaxQDA? How do I export those numbers?
And how do I re-import the results of the calculations? Or are you saying this can not be processed/visualized in MaxQDA at all and needs to be done entirely outside of MaxQDA?
0 Votes
Khaled Alostath posted about 2 months ago Admin
Dear Haug,
I understand your concern.
Currently, the "relative frequency" in MAXQDA refers to the frequency of a word relative to the total frequency of selected words, not the total number of words in a document.
To achieve the comparison you're looking for, you may need to manually calculate the relative frequency by exporting the word frequency data and dividing the frequency of each word by the total number of words in the respective document or segment.
If you wish to add this as a future function and feedback about your experience, you may submit it via this link: https://www.maxqda.com/maxqda-feedback
Hope this answers your question.
Kind regards,
Khaled
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