How can I analyse my data?

There are many different kinds of qualitative data analysis (e.g. Discourse Analysis, I.P.A, narrative analysis, grounded theory, and so on). Each of these applies a different theoretical interest to the interpretation of the data that are collected. To begin with, we will look at what they have in common.

Most methods of qualitative data analysis tend to share some similar analytic processes. These involve the researcher going through the data, reading it and annotating it, identifying particular objects of interests. This is often called coding:

"The first major analytic phase of the research consists of coding the data. In short, coding is the process of defining what the data are all about. Unlike quantitative coding, which means applying preconceived codes (all planned before the researcher even collects data) to the data, qualitative coding means creating the codes as you study your data." (Charmaz, 1995, p.37).

Note that the research process is both more creative, and more interactive, at all stages, for qualitative researchers. As codes are accumulated, the researcher will begin to sort them into themes. This represents a movement from the particular (line-by-line codes) to the general (patterns within those codes). Similarly, the accounts of these themes which emerge represent a movement from the descriptive (e.g. summarising what the interview respondent says, or does, in a series of codes) to the interpretative (making some attempt to identify what it all means).

These processes are typical of what is sometimes called a thematic analysis. This is a kind of generic qualitative approach to data analysis. Most kinds of qualitative analysis are actually ‘thematic’ in some sense.

Note that a semi-structured interview, for example, can be analysed quantitatively - you can go through it, and count the number of times that certain words appear, if you so desire (e.g. a content analysis), and this would be consistent with hypothesis testing (somewhat confusingly, Coolican deals with thematic analysis in these terms). More often than not, however, we choose to collect interview data because we are interested in exploring our participants’ ‘frameworks of meaning.’ It therefore makes sense to apply a more open-ended approach to them.

Qualitative researchers present and justify their results in different terms to those used by quantitative researchers. The key criteria for qualitative reports are twofold. Firstly, it is important that their interpretations are transparent (i.e. that the reader can see very clearly how the researchers' interpretations of the data relate to the data. Secondly, it is important that the interpretations are plausible (i.e. that the account which the researcher offers the reader is persuasive). There is no 'right' interpretation of any qualitative data set, but some interpretations may be more persuasive than others.

Typically, this means that qualitative reports include excerpts of raw data, in the form of extended quotations, alongside the researchers' accounts of them. This allows the reader to make a kind of 'validity check' between the data and the researchers account. For many researchers, this has the added virtue of giving the participants a 'voice' in the published researcher.

The results section of a qualitative report will often be longer and much more much more discursive than the results section of a typical experimental report. This is because there needs to be an account of the data (to communicate a sense of ‘what it is like’) and an interpretation of the data (to make a case for ‘what it means’). This should be based upon the codes and/or themes of the analysis. Often this means that instead of two sections (Results, and Discussion), qualitative reports will offer only one (Analysis).

Phenomenological approaches in psychology - e.g. IPA: 

• concerned with the subjective experience of psychological phenomena, as contextualised in wider world of meaning-making

• makes an epistemological ‘leap-of-faith’ which the constructionist approaches do not, because it thinks that you can - and should - make some kind of inferences about people’s experiences on the basis of what they say 

• these inferences are cautious, because IPA recognises that the constructionist focus on language does demonstrate that alternative versions of stories are always possible 

• therefore an interview provides a contextual snapshot of an interactive account of the participant’s experience 

• aim is essentially a third-person perspective (i.e. your view of someone else’s experience - you can never ‘capture’ their experience head-on) - an ‘insider’s perspective’ on the participants’ world as reconstructed by the researcher - moves into wider interpretative realm to take account of context

• Quantitative and qualitative approaches: basic aims and assumptions

• What is a suitable data collection method?

• How should I transcribe my data?

• How can I analyse my data?

• How can I write my study up?

• What is reflexivity?

• What makes a good qualitative report?

• Useful reading

• Useful links