The Sport Psychologist, 1993,7,127-137

Copyright O 1993 Human Kinetics Publishers, Inc.

Organizing and Interpreting

Unstructured Qualitative Data

Jean C6t6, John H. Salmela, and Abderrahim Baria

University of Ottawa

Storm J. Russell
Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute
In the last several years there has been an increase in the amount of qualitative
research using in-depth interviews and comprehensive content analyses in
sport psychology. However, no explicit method has been provided to deal
with the large amount of unstructured data. This article provides common
guidelines for organizing and interpreting unstructured data. Two main opera-
tions are suggested and discussed: first, coding meaningful text segments, or
creating tags, and second, regrouping similar text segments, or creating catego-
ries. Furthermore, software programs for the microcomputer are presented as
a way to facilitate the organization and interpretation of qualitative data.

A qualitative research movement composed of a variety of approaches

drawn from social sciences has recently gained popularity in sport and physical
education (Bain, 1989; Locke, 1989; Sage, 1989). In sport psychology, Martens
(1987) and Dewar and Horn (1992) questioned the methods of orthodox science
as the most appropriate way of understanding human behavior. They proposed
a heuristic paradigm where the researcher has a central position in the research
process, the main objective being to seek patterns of intact organisms or groups
and to look for synthesis rather than for reductionistic explanations. The heuristic
paradigm stresses the importance of studying the whole, subjective experience
of individuals by examining the way people perceive, create, and interpret their
world. This approach requires an active role of the researcher, who generates
situations in which the subjects reveal detailed information about a specific
domain. Throughout the heuristic process of investigation, the researcher does

J. CBtC, J.H. Salmela, and A. Baria are with the School of Human Kinetics at the
University of Ottawa, 125 University, Ottawa, ON Canada KIN 6N5. S.J. Russell is with
the Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute, 1600 Naismith Dr., Gloucester,
ON Canada KIB 5N4.
 128 Ceti, Salmela, Baria, and Russell

not have to be objective and impartial as in orthodox science, but instead remains
bound to the object of study and contest in which the study takes place.
This kind of research differs fundamentally in conception and procedure
from orthodox science in which the variables are operationalized and predeter-
mined hypotheses are tested to fulfill the ultimate objective of generalization.
The methods of orthodox science treat the social world as if it were hard. external,
and objective, focusing upon an analysis of relationships and regularities between
various concepts of elements of the individuals under study and using different
quantitative techniques for analysis. In the methods of orthodox science, the
researcher's role is different from the heuristic paradigm in that it is to remain
detached from the investigation process (Burrell & Morgan, 1979; Dewar &
Downloaded by New York University on 09/18/16, Volume 7, Article Number 2

Horn, 1992; Martens, 1987). For further discussion on the methodological and
epistemological differences between orthodox and heuristic methods of scientific
inquiry in sport psychology, see Martens (1987) and Dewar and Horn (1992).
It has been recently suggested that more heuristic methods of investigations,
such as idiographic approaches, are needed in sport psychology to gain a better
understanding of human behaviors in sport and exercise settings (Dewar & Horn,
1992; Martens, 1987; Strean & Roberts, 1992). These authors asserted that
research in sport psychology should put more emphasis on experiential knowledge
and recommended different idiographic approaches of investigation. The idio-
graphic approach, which includes in-depth interviews and comprehensive content
analysis of a person's oral or written records, has been extensively used by sport
psychologists in the last several years (Cohn, 1990, 1991; Orlick & Partington,
1988; Partington & Orlick, 1991; Russell, 1990; Russell & Salmela, 1992; Sal-
mela, Russell, C6t6, & Baria, 1991; Scanlan, Stein, & Ravizza, 1989, 1991;
Weiss, Barber, Sisley, & Ebbeck, 1991). Although these authors provide adequate
methodological descriptions in their studies, there is often a lack of clarity and
precision in the procedure employed for the data organization and analysis.
Keeping in mind that qualitative analysis remains a flexible process, the
guidelines which will be presented in this paper are aimed at structuring the
procedures of qualitative analysis, thus increasing the trustworthiness of the
qualitative research process. Although there is no one correct way of analyzing
qualitative data, it is essential that qualitative researchers provide a detailed
description of the procedures, decision criteria, and data manipulation that allow
them to present the final results of a study. This paper will try to systematize a
procedure used to analyze unstructured qualitative data. In addition, software
tools for microcomputers will be presented as a way to facilitate the organization
and intrepretation of qualitative data.
In an extensive review of the different kinds of qualitative analysis, Tesch
(1990) distinguishes between two main approaches: interpretational qualitative
analysis and structural qualitative analysis. Using Tesch's words, "The interpreta-
tional researcher overlays a structure of her or his own making on the data as a
device for rendering the phenomenon under study easier to grasp" (p. 103). On
the other hand, "Structural analysts assume that the structure is actually inherent
or contained in the data and the researcher's job is to uncover it" (p. 103).
Structural analysis means that there are words, categories, or patterns that
are determined before the analysis; the function of the researcher is to retrieve
and make sense of that information throughout the data by working with a set
of relationships whose nature is well established. unlike-the episodes or text
 Unstructured Qualitative Data 129

segments with which interpretational researchers work, structural analysts deal

with more discrete units such as words, phrases, or sentences, whose boundaries
rarely overlap. Structural analysis has been mostly used in discourse analysis,
ethnography of communication, ethnoscience, and structural ethnography (Tesch,
1990).
Still, for interpretational analysis, elements, categories, patterns, and rela-
tions between properties emerge from the analysis of the data and are not predeter-
mined. Interpretational researchers deal with fuzzily bounded categories of text,
the goal being to develop the best classification system that fits the data with
minimal overlapping between categories. This paper will focus primarily on
providing guidelines for interpretational analysis since it has been one of the
most popular methods of qualitative analysis in sport psychology.
Downloaded by New York University on 09/18/16, Volume 7, Article Number 2

The research procedure involved in interpretational analysis was perhaps

best systematized by Glaser and Strauss (1967) for the development of empirically
grounded theory. The general principles of grounded theory are based on the
constant comparative method and involve an inductive process of reasoning.
According to Goetz and LeCompte (1981), "Purely inductive research begins
with a collection of data, empirical observations or measurements of some kind,
and builds theoretical categories and propositions from relationships discovered
among the data" (p. 52). In sport psychology, most of the qualitative research
using an idiographic approach has been aimed at providing similarities and
dissimilarities between elements inductively derived from the data.

Interpretational Qualitative Analysis

in Sport Psychology
Scanlan et al. (1989) used Glaser and Strauss's theoretical framework to investi-
gate the sources of enjoyment of elite figure skaters. They interviewed 26 former
national championship figure skaters and inductively content analyzed the inter-
view transcripts. A four-level hierarchical synthesis emerged from the interview
data. The more abstract and general level was composed of five categories that
included the data of the lower order categories. Scanlan et al. (1991) also examined
the sources of stress for elite figure skaters which resulted in categories and a
four-level hierarchical synthesis.
A similar research method was used by Weiss et al. (1991) to assess
perceptions of ability and effective experiences of 28 female coaches. Interviews
with coaches focused on positive and negative aspects of coaching and perceived
strengths and weaknesses of each coach's ability. Twenty-one categories emerged
from the interview transcripts and represented the highest level of a four-level
hierarchical diagram.
Cohn (1990) used a similar method of investigation to examine sources of
stress among 10 high school competitive golfers. Thirty-nine sources of competi-
tive stress were identified and regrouped into four main categories that best
described the data. Furthermore, Cohn (1991) interviewed 19 competitive golfers
on their personal peak performances in golf. The results provided 25 subcategories
which were compared and assembled into nine main psychological categories.
An idiographic approach was also used by Orlick and Partington (1988)
who interviewed 75 elite athletes to assess their mental readiness and mental
control. Seven mental factors and situational factors were associated with success.
 130 C M , Salmela, Baria, and Russell

Each of these "mental links to excellence" was supported by quotations from

different athletes. Partington and Orlick (1991) used a similar method of investiga-
tion to evaluate the best consulting experience of sport psychology consultants.
Nineteen sport psychology consultants were asked to elaborate on their best
consulting experience. The analysis resulted in five general elements.
Russell (1990) also used open-ended interview and inductive content analyses
to examine how 20 expert athletes from four different sports defrned and classified
sport task situations which represented a complex and demanding experience. Thirty-
three categories were derived from the interview transcripts. These categories were
regrouped into 15 and then 6 higher order categories of athletes' perception of
difficult situations. In the same way, Salmela et al. (1991) elicited the knowledge
of eight expert gymnastic coaches whose knowledge domains were structured into
Downloaded by New York University on 09/18/16, Volume 7, Article Number 2

a hierarchical synthesis composed of a four-level hierarchical structure. The higher

level orders represented seven abstract levels of knowledge.
A comparison of these studies shows two main commonalities in the analy-
sis. First, the interview data were divided into meaningful segments of informa-
tion, and second, the data segments were categorized according to an organizing
system principally extracted from the data themselves. Several of the studies
presented the results of their analyses in a hierarchical diagram of categories
(Russell, 1990; Salmela et al., 1991; Scanlan et al., 1989, 1991; Weiss et al.,
1991). In other studies the authors provided a description of themes or elements
that best described the data (Cohn, 1990, 1991; Orlick & Partington, 1988;
Partington & Orlick, 1991).
Although the presentation of results varied between these studies, the main
goal of each study was to reduce the amount of data and obtain a unified picture
of the phenomena under study. While a detailed conceptual description of the
methodology is provided in some cases (Scanlan et al., 1989, 1991; Weiss et al.
1991), there is little available information on the explicit procedures, decision
criteria, or data manipulation in the data analysis. Little reference is made to
procedures and operations used between the first stage, in which the researcher
has to deal with numerous pages of unstructured data, and the final stage, which
represents the organizing system of categories or elements. One can see that as
qualitative research is becoming more popular, the need for setting common
guidelines for qualitative data analysis is more essential.

Guidelines for Interpretational Qualitative Analysis

Tesch (1990) suggested that two main operationsplay important roles in the develop-
ment of an organizing system from unstructured data. First, there is the detailed
examination of the data to identify topics which best describe particular segments
of text. Secondly, there is the determination of common features which characterize
the text segments in order to create and understand the relationship between topics.
These two operations are typical of interpretational qualitative analysis and are
usually undertaken in two separate phases: data organization and data interpretation,
which can also be seen as creating tags and creating categories.
Creating Tags
The first part of interpretational analysis, creating tags, aims to produce a set of
concepts which adequately represent the information included in the interview
 Unstructured Qualitative Data 131

transcripts. An open coding strategy identifies meaningful pieces of information

(Strauss, 1987). This procedure involves dividing the text of each interview into
text segments called "meaning units." Tesch (1990) defined a meaning unit as
a "segment of text that is comprehensible by itself and contains one idea, episode
or piece of information" (p. 116). In open coding, the coder looks for in vivo
tags, that is, terms used by the individuals who are being studied.
At this point, the coder is not concerned with the aptness of the tag, because
the tag can be changed in the analysis process, or can be combined later with
other tags containing similar meaning. Therefore, each meaning unit is tagged
with a provisional name describing the topic of the text segments. For example,
in the study with expert gymnastic coaches (Salmela et al., 1991) the tag "good
coaches are disciplined and goal-oriented," was given to the following meaning
Downloaded by New York University on 09/18/16, Volume 7, Article Number 2

unit from one coach's interview:

Good coaches are very disciplined and very goal-oriented. They totally
understand the process that produces a high-performance athlete. They
focus constantly on that process. There is not one minute in the gymnasium
when they don't focus on that process. Everything they do has a reason.
Sometimes you watch and you don't understand the reason, but there is a
reason.
In summary, creating tags separates relevant portions of data from their
context, or "de-contextualizes" the information (Tesch, 1990). Further, to enhance
the validity of the study, the attribution of a tag for a piece of information can be
discussed between two coders until the term that best describes the text is agreed
upon. This procedure assures that the validity of the terms chosen is guarded against
one coder's own ethnocentrisms and perceptual biases (LeCompte & Goetz, 1982).
Creating Categories
The second step of interpretational analysis, creating categories, involves listing
and comparing the tags derived in the first phase. Tags with similar meanings
are gathered togther, and a label that captures the substance of the topic is
created to identify the cluster of tags (Miles & Huberman, 1984). In the example
mentioned in the previous section, the tag "good coaches are disciplined and goal-
oriented" was inserted with other similar tags into a category entitled "coaches'
qualities." In the same study (Salmela et al., 1991), the following meaning unit
was first tagged "working with young coaches" and then was put into the
category "training other coaches":
What happened before is that I was always practicing the swing. What 1
do with the young coaches now is practice the swing until they have it.
Once they have it reasonably we will work from there.
Another example of interpretational analysis is the following meaning unit
which was tagged "learning through personal experience" and classified into
the category "sources of acquiring knowledge":
I think the experience alone outweighs the knowledge because you learn
from experience. Certainly in the last three years I've learned more about
gymnastics than 1 did in my whole life. I'm learning through my experience
some of the problems my athletes have technically and preparation-wise.
 132 Chft!, Salmela, Baria, and Russell

The purpose of the second step of interpretational analysis is, therefore, to

"re-contextualize" the information into distinct categories, resulting in a set of
categories which serves as a preliminary organizing system (Tesch, 1990).
This initial classification system is built according to three critical character-
istics of categorization: (a) coding experience, (b) inductive inference, and (c)
similarity (Smith, 1990). First, the coding or tagging experience, which is essential
to categorizing a large amount of qualitative data, is used to rearrange the text
into manageable and organized units. Second, inductive inference is used to
create categories. In this process, there are no predetermined categories or patterns
before data collection: The important dimensions of the interviews emerge from
the analysis. In other words, tags and categories are generated from the data
(Miles & Huberman, 1984; Patton, 1980). Finally, the categories are judged by
Downloaded by New York University on 09/18/16, Volume 7, Article Number 2

their similarity, so that the data in each category are similar to each other yet
distinct from the other categories of data (Smith, 1990). This characteristic of a
category can be referred to as its internal homogeneity and external heterogeneity
(Patton, 1980).
According to Tesch (1990) categories for sorting the segments must remain
flexible during the analysis process. Because categories are developed mostly
from the data, they can be modified and refined until a satisfactory system is
established. For example, in the Salmela et al. (1991) study, the three categories
mentioned before ("qualities of a good coach," "training other coaches," and
"sources of acquiring knowledge") were regrouped into a higher level category
entitled "coach development." An important factor which limits the list of
categories is that the organizing system becomes theoretically saturated (Glaser &
Strauss, 1967). Theoretical saturation is reached when the categorizing of new
data fits adequately into the existing organizing system without the emergence
of new themes or categories.

The Mechanics of Qualitative Data Analysis

Somehow researchers who want to organize and interpret text segments need to
rely on methods or procedures that will allow them to systematically classify the
data. There are many ways to handle qualitative data; however, few studies in
sport psychology have given a description of structured steps and procedures.
The next section provides some examples of manual and electronic procedures
to handle qualitative data which could increase the validity of the qualitative
research process.

Manual Manipulation of Unstructured Qualitative Data

Manually handling many pages of unstructured data is laborious and time consum-
ing. To help in the organization and interpretation of a large amount of qualitative
data, Bodgan and Biklen (1982) proposed two methods: the cut-up-and-put-in-
folders approach and the file-card system. Essentially, what these methods entail
is working with numerous copies of the transcripts and making sure that they
are all well identified. Creating tags manually can be done directly on a copy of
the transcript by dividing the text into meaning units and giving a tag to the text
segment. For this process, one must keep an inventory of the tags by numbering
them or using different colors to identify them.
 Unstructured Qualitative Data 133

The second part of the analysis, creating categories, can also be accom-
plished manually by giving numbers to the categories and assigning the appro-
priate number to each meaning unit on the transcript. The process of
recontextualizing each meaning unit into the organizing system can be done by
cutting and pasting each meaning unit into different piles representing categories.
Another method of recontextualizing meaning units into categories is to use a
file-card system (Bodgan & Biklen, 1982; Tesch, 1990). The first task of the
coder in this process i s to number each data document and each line of the
interview transcripts page by page. Then, a set of file cards representing each
major category can be used when the coder reads through the data. The operation
of categorization would then be reduced to writing the data document number
with the corresponding line on the appropriate file cards.
Downloaded by New York University on 09/18/16, Volume 7, Article Number 2

A method similar to the above is essential for manually organizing and interpre-
ting a large amount of qualitative data. However, because previous sport psychology
studies have never referred to the mechanics of analysis of qualitative data, one can
only assume that some sort of manual procedure such as those described previously
were used to obtain categories or elements which represent the data.
Nevertheless, even with the appropriate method of manual organization,
the chances of error increase with the quantity of data manipulated. Large-scale
studies such as those done by Orlick and Partington (1988) with 75 elite athletes,
Scanlan et al. (1989) with 26 figure skaters, and Weiss et al. (1991) with 28
coaches, require discipline and careful, tedious manipulation by the coders. Errors
in tagging or categorizing are potentially frequent and are often difficult to detect.
Furthermore, the researcher who analyzes large sets of complex qualitative data
by hand may encounter time-consuming problems such as (a) losing the source
of a meaning unit, (b) facing a decontextualized meaning unit that does not have
any meaning out of its original context, (c) putting the same meaning unit in
more than one category, (d) making changes on the content of a category by
moving meaning units from one category to the other, and (e) renaming or
redefining a category.
These examples, which are not uncommon in interpretational qualitative
analyses, can be attenuated with content analysis computer programs. Electronic
data handling allows the analyst to use some functions such as searching and
replacing which facilitate the operations involved in organizing and interpreting
large sets of qualitative data.

Software Programs for Interpretational Qualitative Analysis

Most of the software programs specifically designed for qualitative analysis have
two main functions in common: First, after tags have been created, they allow
the coder to attach tags to meaning units, and second, they allow the coder to search
for tags and regroup them (Tesch, 1990). Therefore, the two main operations of
creating tags and creating categories involved in interpretational analysis can be
performed and facilitated by computer manipulations (CBt6, 1991).
Several software programs for qualitative analysis are available for use on
IBM, IBM compatible, and Macintosh machines. The main qualitative analysis
software on IBM and IBM compatible computers are Ethnograph, Qualpro,
and Textbase Alpha; on the Macintosh, two software programs are available,
HyperQual and HyperResearch. For a detailed description of these software
 134 * C6t6, Salmela, Baria, and Russell

programs and where to purchase them, see Tesch (1990) and Hess-Biber, Dupuis,
and Kinder (1990). Although these programs share similar procedures in the
analysis of qualitative data, HyperQual (Padilla, 1989) and its application with
interpretational qualitative analysis will be discussed in more detail.
Creating Tags With HyperQual. With HyperQual, two operations are
involved in the creation of tags: The coder first must select a meaningful text
segment and, second, assign an appropriate tag. HyperQual, as well as most of
the other qualitative analysis programs, permits the user to apply more than one
tag to a text segment. This feature is important because a text segment can be
relevant to more than one category. After these operations, the meaning units
with their corresponding tags are sent automatically to an output file for later
examination or printing. Since the organizing system is subject to change during
Downloaded by New York University on 09/18/16, Volume 7, Article Number 2

the process of analysis, an important feature of the software is to be able to

change, delete, or add tags. With HyperQual, individual tags can be changed,
added, or deleted, and it is possible to replace or delete all occurrences of a tag
in a single operation.
Creating Categories With HyperQual. The aim of the second part of
interpretational analysis is to create categories by clustering together meaning
units and tags with similar meanings. With HyperQual, the task of the coder is
to recontextualize the data by dumping each meaning unit into separate folders
or categories. For this process, all meaning units are sorted and grouped according
to the similarity of their tags. When a meaning unit is selected, the coder has
two options: Send the meaning unit into a new category, or put the meaning unit
into an existing category. If the meaning unit is sent to a new category, the coder
must provide a category name, and HyperQual automatically creates and inserts
the meaning unit into a new folder. If the existing category option is selected,
the coder then supplies the exact name of the existing category and inserts the
meaning unit. Therefore, this operation serves to recontextualize the data; that
is, each segment of text from each interviewee is placed automatically in the
context of one category in the organizing system.
Other Features of Software Programs and HyperQual. The qualitative
analysis programs never alter the original data document; they simply store the
information about the meaning units and tags in separately created folders. In
fact, with a simple operation, it is always possible during any step of the analysis
to return to the original transcript from which the meaning unit was extracted.
Furthermore, the source information is always attached to single segments of
text elicited from the original data. These features allow the coder to easily add
or eliminate information in a meaning unit and to reverify the context from which
the meaning unit originated.
A useful function in HyperQual is the capability to automatically sort the
same tag attached to more than one meaning unit. It allows the coder to retrieve
in one operation all identical tags with their corresponding meaning units and
create a new folder. In addition, HyperQual provides a memo and schema folder,
analagous to field notes in ethnographic research, which can always be activated
during the analyses; this feature may be useful for certain kinds of research
projects in which some form of contextual data might be added, such as events
occuring during the interview, for later use in interpreting the meaning unit.
Finally, to make sure that each meaning unit belongs to the appropriate
category, each folder can be printed and examined individually. Different options
 Unstructured Qualitative Data 135

are available when printing a document; for example, the source, tags, meaning
units and card number can all appear in or be left out of the document.
Qualitative analysis programs like HyperQual can be very practical for
interpretational qualitative analysis, as well as for structural qualitative analysis.
For instance, HyperQual has a function to search for a particular idea or concept.
The coder needs to provide key words and the program automatically filters the
data, finds the word and dumps the key word and two lines that precede and follow
into an existing or new folder. This recontextualization feature is convenient when
certain emerging patterns have been previously established in the data analysis
process.
Downloaded by New York University on 09/18/16, Volume 7, Article Number 2

Software Programs for Structural Qualitative Analysis

Structural qualitative analysis involves a list of categories, words or patterns
which are determined before data analysis. The duty of the coder is to search,
retrieve, and organize the data into predetermined categories. Although most of
the qualitative analysis programs previously mentioned would be appropriate for
this kind of analysis, other software programs such as data base managers and
text retrievers are also helpful.
Data base managers give the opportunity to code individual data units with
key words and retrieve these specific data units across a large data base. Data
base programs have already been used as a qualitative research tool both in
psychology (Todd, 1987) and sociology (Brent, Scott, & Spencer, 1987). How-
ever, these kinds of programs do not provide easy ways to divide or move
meaning units freely from one category to the other.
Text retrievers are another type of software tool used for structural qualita-
tive analysis. Text retrievers allow the coder to deal with individual words and
phrases as opposed to longer meaning units or chunks of data. According to Tesch
(1990), "Text retrievers make lists of the occurrence of words in a document, or
of specified words, count how often the words appear, create indices, and often
provide a list of words plus a specified number of the words that surround them
in the document" (p. 109). Text retrievers can be of use to researchers who are
interested in language or in studies where specific words or phrases regularly
appear in the text.

Summary
This paper outlines the increasing importance of the heuristic paradigm in sport
psychology by focusing on a methodological aspect: qualitative analysis. Two
main operations for analyzing unstructured qualitative data have been suggested
and discussed: First creating tags or coding meaningful text segments, and second,
creating categories or regrouping similar text segments. Although these guidelines
can systematize the interpretational qualitative analysis procedures, they do not
rigidly standardize qualitative analysis methods. Thus, qualitative analysis re-
mains a flexible process which can be adapted to the individual under study and
to various research problems.
The use of the computer to facilitate the qualitative research process along
with some examples of software tools that help in the organization and interpreta-
tion of unstructured qualitative data have been provided. Although the assistance
 136 C6t6, Salmeh, Baria, and Russell

of the computer is becoming an indispensable tool for the organization of numer-

ous pages of interview transcript, the major intellectual task of tagging and
categorizing the data still lies with the researcher.
To conclude, because there are many ways of analyzing qualitative data,
it is important that researchers provide a detailed description of the methods used
to organize and interpret qualitative data. This process increases the credibility
of a study and indicates that the researchers took necessary precautionary mea-
sures for providing results that best describe the phenomena under study.

References
Downloaded by New York University on 09/18/16, Volume 7, Article Number 2

Bain, L.L. (1989). Interpretive and critical research in sport and physical education.
Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 60, 21-24.
Bodgan, R.C., & Biklen, S.N. (1982). Qualitative research for education: An introduction
to theory and methods. Toronto: Allyn & Bacon.
Brent, E., Scott, J., & Spencer, J. (1987). The use of computers by qualitative researchers.
Qualitative Sociology, 10, 309-3 13.
Burrell, G., & Morgan, G. (1979). Sociological paradigms and organisational analysis.
London: Heinemann.
Cohn, P.J. (1990). An exploratory study on sources of stress and athlete burnout in youth
golf. The Sport Psychologist, 4, 95-106.
Cohn, P.J. (1991). An exploratory study on peak performance in golf. The Sport Psycholo-
gist, 5, 1-14.
C6t6, J. (1991, November). HyperQual: A software program to analyze qualitative data.
Paper presented at the meeting of the Canadian Society for Psychomotor Learning
and Sport Psychology, London, Ontario, Canada.
Dewar, A., & Horn, T.S. (1992). A critical analysis of knowledge construction in sport
psychology. In T.S. Horn (Ed.), Advances in sport psychology (pp. 13-22). Cham-
paign, IL: Human Kinetics.
Glaser, B.G., & Strauss, A.L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for
qualitative research. New York: Aldine.
Goetz, J.P., & LeCompte, M.D. (1981). Ethnographic research and the problem of data
reduction. Anthropology and Educational Quarterly, 12, 5 1-70.
Hess-Biber, S., Dupuis, P., & Kinder, S. (1990). HyperResearch: A computer program
for the analysis of qualitative data using the Macintosh. Qualitative Studies in
Education, 3, 189-193.
LeCompte, M.D., & Goetz, J.P. (1982). Problems of reliability and validity in ethnographic
research. Review of Educational Research, 52, 31-60.
Locke, L.F. (1989). Qualitative research as a form of scientific inquiry in sport and
physical education. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 60, 1-20.
Martens, R. (1987). Science, knowledge, and sport psychology. The Sport Psychologist,
1, 29-55.
Miles, M.B., & Huberman, A.M. (1984). Qualitative data analysis. Beverley Hills, CA: Sage.
Orlick, T., & Partington, J. (1988). Mental links to excellence. The Sport Psychologist,
2, 105-130.
Padilla, R.V. (1989). HyperQual user's guide (version 2.0). (Available from Raymond
V. Padilla, 3327 N. Dakota, Chandler, AZ, 85224, U.S.A.)
Partington, J., & Orlick, T. (1991). An analysis of Olympic sport psychology consultants'
best-ever consulting experiences. The Sport Psychologist, 5, 183-193.
 Unstructured Qualitative Data 137

Patton, M.Q. (1980). Qualitative evaluation methods. Beverley Hills, CA: Sage.
Russell, S.J. (1990). Athletes' knowledge in task perception, definition and classification.
International Journal of Sport Psychology, 21, 85-101.
Russell, S.J., & Salmela, J.H. (1992). Quantifying expert athlete knowledge. Journal of
Applied Sport Psychology, 4 , 10-26.
Sage, G.H. (1989). A commentary on qualitative research as a form of scientific inquiry
in sport and physical education. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 60,
25-29.
Salmela, J.H., Russell, S.J., CGtC, J., & Baria, A. (1991, September). The structure of
knowledge of elite male and female coaches. Paper presented at the VIII European
Congress of Sport Psychology, Cologne, Germany.
Scanlan, T.K., Stein, G.L., & Ravizza, K. (1989). An in-depth study of former elite figure
Downloaded by New York University on 09/18/16, Volume 7, Article Number 2

skaters: 11. Sources of enjoyment. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 11, 65-
83.
Scanlan, T.K., Stein, G.L., & Ravizza, K. (1991). An in-depth study of former elite figure
skaters: In. Sources of stress. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 13, 103-
120.
Smith, E.E. (1990). Categorization. In D.N. Osherson & E.E. Smith (Eds.), An invitation
to cognitive science: Thinking (pp. 33-53). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Strean, W.B., & Roberts, G.C. (1992). Future directions in applied sport psychology
research. The Sport Psychologist, 6 , 55-65.
Strauss, A. (1987). Qualitative analysis for social scientists. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Tesch, R. (1990). Qualitative research analysis types and software tools. New York:
Falmer Press.
Todd, D.M. (1987). Microcomputer-assisted qualitative analysis: A research tool for
scientist-practitioners. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 18, 520-
525.
Weiss, M.R., Barber, H., Sisley, B.L., & Ebbeck, V. (1991). Developing competence and
confidence in novice female coaches: Perceptions of ability and affective experi-
ences following a season-long coaching internship. Journal of Sport & Exercise
Psychology, 13, 336-363.

Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Kristin CGtC for her assistance and constructive comments
during the writing of this manuscript and Dr. Pierre Trudel for his knowledge of qualitative
data software programs.

Manuscript submitted: January 2, 1992

Revision received: August 28, 1991