Chapter 8

1. Chapter 8 Data Analysis and Representation Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

2. Key Questions • What are the common data analysis strategies used in qualitative research? • How might the overall data analysis process be conceptualized in qualitative research? • What are specific data analysis procedures used within each approach to inquiry, and how do they differ? • What are the procedures available in qualitative computer analysis programs, and how would these procedures differ by approaches to qualitative inquiry? Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

3. Three Analysis Strategies 8.3 Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

4. Three Analysis Strategies (cont.) Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e 8.4

5. The Data Analysis Spiral Account Matrix, trees Propositions Representing Visualizing Context, Categories Comparisons Describing Classifying Interpreting Reflecting Writing notes Across questions Reading Memoing Files, Units, Organize Data Managing Data Collection (text, images) 8.5 Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

6. Data Management • Organize data into file folders or computer files • Make back-up copies of the data • Construct an organizational plan so that the data is easy to locate • Convert files into text units (e.g., word, sentence, story) • Computer programs can facilitate data management and storage of data , Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

7. Reading and Memoing • Read entire transcripts several times to get an overall meaning • Make notes in the margins of transcripts, field-notes or photographs as you read to note key phrases, ideas, or concepts • These notes can become part of the database for analysis Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

8. Describing, Classifying, and Interpreting • Code the data to describe the context of the setting • Develop codes or categories that describe what is being talked about or seen in a visual image (e.g., photograph) • Develop only about 25-50 codes (“lean coding”) • Codes can be counted to see how frequently they appear in the data • Preexisting or a priori codes can sometimes come from the literature • Codes can originate from the researcher or can be in vivo codes which are the exact words of the participants , Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

9. Describing, Classifying, and Interpreting • Code segments to look for • Codes that represent information that researchers expect to find before the study • Codes that represent surprising information the researchers did not expect to find • Codes that represent information that is conceptually interesting or unusual to researchers • Use codes to develop larger themes • Themes are the broad general ideas that come from the coding process • Limit themes to 5-7 that have sub-themes to support the themes (“winnowing the data”) Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

10. Describing, Classifying, and Interpreting • Using a postmodern perspective, theme may be formed during data analysis to: • Dismantle a dichotomy to expose a false distinction • Examine silences noting who or what is excluded • Attend to disruptions and contradictions to learn where the texts fail to make sense • Focus on the element most peculiar to the text • Interpret metaphors as a rich source for multiple meanings • Analyze double entendres that point to an unconscious subtext • Separate group-specific and more general sources of bias by reconstructing the text with substitution of its main elements Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

11. Describing, Classifying, and Interpreting • All qualitative research is interpretive. • Interpretation of the data involves making sense of the data • It is based on researcher hunches • It can be based on social science constructs • It can be based on personal views that are contrasted with social science constructs • The process of interpretation involves forming larger meanings of what is happening in the situations or sites • Post modern and interpretive researchers view these interpretations as tentative, inconclusive, and questioning , Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

12. Representing, Visualizing • Researchers package the findings as text, tables, or figures • Matrix tables can be used to compare men and women in terms of themes or categories • Tree or hierarchical diagrams can be used to represent the levels of abstraction in the analysis • Axial coding diagrams in grounded theory studies illustrate the parts in the process being studied • Hypotheses or propositions in grounded theory studies specify the relationships among the categories Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

13. Analysis Within the Approaches to Inquiry: Narrative (Clandinin & Connelly 2000) • Analysis centers on the story to be told • Chronology • Epiphanies (turning points) • Options for analysis • Focus on the five elements of plot structure (characters, setting, problem, actions, and resolution) • Three dimensional space approach focusing on interaction (personal and social), continuity (past, present, future), and situation (physical places or the storytellers’ places) ‘ ‘ ‘ Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

14. Analysis Within the Approaches to Inquiry: Narrative • Common elements to both approaches • Collecting personal stories • Retelling stories based on narrative elements such as the five elements approach or three dimensional space approach • Rewriting the story into a chronological sequence • Incorporating the setting or place of the participant’s experiences Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

15. Analysis Within the Approaches to Inquiry: Narrative • Identifying life experiences in biographical research (Denzin 1989b) • The participant constructs a journal or sketch of his or her life • The researcher looks for life-course stages or experiences to develop a chronology • The researcher looks for contextual materials • The researcher asks the participant to expand on sections of stories and theorize about his or her life Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

16. Analysis Within the Approaches to Inquiry: Narrative • Identifying life experiences in biographical research (cont.) • The narrative segments and categories are isolated and meanings are determined • The researcher reconstructs the story and identifies the factors that have shaped the life • The final case includes the processes of the individual’s life, the theories that relate to these life experiences, and unique and general features of life Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

17. Analysis Within the Approaches to Inquiry: Phenomenology (Moustakas 1994) • The researcher describes personal experiences with the phenomenon (bracketing) • Develop a list of significant statements that are non-overlapping and have equal worth about how individuals are experiencing the topic (horizonalization) Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

18. Analysis Within the Approaches to Inquiry: Phenomenology (Moustakas 1994) • Collapse the statements into meaning units or themes • Write a description of what the participants in the study have experienced (textual description) Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

19. Analysis Within the Approaches to Inquiry: Phenomenology (Moustakas 1994) • Write a description of how the experience happened (structural description) • Write a composite description of the phenomenon that incorporates both the textual and structural descriptions • This is the essence of the experience • It is the culmination of the study • It is a long paragraph that tells the reader what the participants experienced with the phenomenon and how or in what context they experienced it Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

20. Analysis Within the Approaches to Inquiry: Grounded Theory (Strauss & Corbin 1998) • Open coding • Researcher examines and codes the text and develops categories • Researcher attempts to saturate the categories • Researcher dimensionalizes the categories by creating subcategories called properties that represent multiple perspectives on the categories and presents the dimensionalized categories on a continuum typically in a table that contains each of the dimensionalized categories Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

21. Analysis Within the Approaches to Inquiry: Grounded Theory (Strauss & Corbin 1998) • Axial coding • Researcher identifies a single category from the open coding list as the central phenomenon of interest (central category) • Researcher uses the remaining categories to form a coding paradigm consisting of the causal conditions, intervening conditions, context, strategies, and consequences that relate to the central category • The coding paradigm presents a theoretical paradigm of the process that is being studied , Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

22. Analysis Within the Approaches to Inquiry: Grounded Theory (Strauss & Corbin 1998) • Selective coding • The researcher creates a conditional matrix based on the axial coding paradigm (This is seldom seen in studies) • This matrix is used to help the researcher visualize the range of conditions and consequences related to the phenomenon • The researcher generates propositions (hypotheses) from the theory. These hypotheses could be tested using empirically quantitative methods • The researcher forms a storyline connecting the categories Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

23. Analysis Within the Approaches to Inquiry: Ethnography (Wolcott 1994b) • Description • Describe the culture-sharing group and setting • Present the facts without interpretation • Present the facts in an interesting way • Can chronicle a day in the life of the group or individual • Can focus on a critical or key event or develop a story complete with plots and characters that can focus in the interaction between groups or showing different perspectives through the viewpoints of the participants Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

24. Analysis Within the Approaches to Inquiry: Ethnography (Wolcott 1994b) • Analysis • Sorting through the materials • Developing a description, identifying themes (searching for patterned regularities), and making interpretation • Building taxonomies and comparison tables • Comparing cultural groups to others or evaluating the group according to standards • Connecting the culture-sharing group and broader theoretical frameworks Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

25. Analysis Within the Approaches to Inquiry: Ethnography (Wolcott 1994b) • Interpretation • The researcher probes the question, How does the culture-sharing group work? • The researcher goes beyond the data to draw inferences from the data or turns to theory to provide structure for interpretations • The researcher personalizes interpretations • The researcher may also develop an interpretation though poetry, fiction, or performance Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

26. Analysis Within the Approaches to Inquiry: Case Study (Stake 1995) • Description of the case and its setting • If there is a chronology of events, find evidence for each step • Determine how the case or incident fits into the larger situation • Approaches to analysis and interpretation • Categorical aggregation: the researcher collects instances from the data to look for issue-relevant meanings • Direct interpretation: the researcher looks at a single instance and draws meaning from it Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

27. Analysis Within the Approaches to Inquiry: Case Study (Stake 1995) • Approaches to analysis and interpretation • Cross-case analysis: the research studies two or more cases to look for similarities between the two • Naturalistic generalizations: the researcher notes what can be learned for individuals or a larger population from the case Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

28. Computer Use in Qualitative Data Analysis • Advantages of using qualitative analysis software • provides a means to store data • provides an organized filing system • Helps the researcher locate material easily • Allows the researcher to look at the data more closely • The researcher can visualize the relationship among codes and themes with concept mapping features • Memos can be created, associated with codes and themes, and can easily be retrieved Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

29. Computer Use in Qualitative Data Analysis • Disadvantages of using qualitative analysis software • Time must be spent learning the software • Perceived discomfort introduced by the computer between the researcher and data • Perception that the data and organizational structures are set by the software and can’t be changed • Software documentation is sometimes confusing • Some programs may not have the features the researcher needs Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

30. Common Packages Available • NVivo7: (www.qsrinternational.com) • Atlas.ti: (www.atlasti.com) • HyperRESEARCH (www.researchware.com) • Ethnograph: (www.qualisresearch.com) • Qualrus: (www.qualrus.com) • MAXqda (www.maxqda.com) Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

31. Comparing Software Packages 8.31 Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

32. Ways Computer Programs Facilitate Qualitative Data Analysis • Helps store and organize data • Helps locate text or image segments • Helps locate quotes or segments associated with codes in large databases • Facilitates comparing codes Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

33. Ways Computer Programs Facilitate Qualitative Data Analysis • Facilitates forming themes • Creates a visual concept map of themes and codes • Facilitates writing, storing and attaching memos • Helps create a template that fits the analysis Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e

34. Chapter 8 Data Analysis and Representation Creswell Qualitative Inquiry 2e