Axial Coding
A second stage of grounded theory coding that relates initial codes to one another, organizing them around categories, conditions, and consequences.
Axial coding is a stage of grounded theory analysis that follows open coding. Having generated many initial codes, the researcher begins relating them to one another, grouping codes around central categories and exploring the conditions, interactions, and consequences connected to each. The aim is to reassemble data that open coding fractured, so that a more organized, explanatory structure emerges. Not every grounded theory tradition uses the term, but most involve some comparable move from fragmenting data to connecting it.
For a thesis using grounded theory, axial coding is where scattered observations start becoming an argument. Documenting how you linked categories, ideally with diagrams or memos, gives your methodology chapter concrete evidence of analytic depth and helps you present findings as an integrated framework rather than a list of disconnected codes.
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