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ANALYSIS

The process of breaking up the whole

study into its constituent parts of
categories according to the specific
questions under the statement of the
problem.
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➢ Qualitative Data Analysis

➢ Quantitative Data Analysis
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Qualitative Data Analysis

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Qualitative data refers to pretty

much any data that’s “not
numbers”. In other words, it’s not
the stuff you measure using a fixed
scale or complex statistics or
mathematics.
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Qualitative research focuses on

words, descriptions, concepts or
ideas – while quantitative research
focuses on numbers and statistics.
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Qualitative research investigates the

“softer side” of things to explore
and describe, while quantitative
research focuses on the “hard
numbers”, to measure differences
between variables and the
relationships between them.
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The Qualitative Data

Analysis Methods
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Θ Qualitative content analysis

Θ Narrative analysis
Θ Discourse analysis
Θ Thematic analysis
Θ Grounded theory (GT)
Θ Interpretive
phenomenological analysis
(IPA)
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QDA Method #1: Qualitative Content Analysis

Content analysis is used to evaluate patterns within

a piece of content (for example, words, phrases or
images) or across multiple pieces of content or
sources of communication.
With content analysis, you could:
✖ identify the frequency with which an idea is shared
or spoken about;
✖ identify patterns of deeper underlying
interpretations
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QDA Method #1: Qualitative Content Analysis

With content analysis, you’ll group large amounts of text

into codes, summarise these into categories, and possibly
even tabulate the data to calculate the frequency of
certain concepts or variables.
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QDA Method #1: Qualitative Content Analysis

One of the main issues with content analysis is that it can

be very time consuming, as it requires lots of reading and
re-reading of the texts. Also, because of its
multidimensional focus on both qualitative and
quantitative aspects, it is sometimes accused of losing
important nuances in communication.
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QDA Method #2: Narrative Analysis

Narrative analysis is all about listening to people telling

stories and analyzing what that means.
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QDA Method #2: Narrative Analysis

For instance, the narrative of a prisoner trying to justify

their crime could provide insight into their view of the
world and the justice system. Similarly, analyzing the
ways entrepreneurs talk about the struggles in their
careers or cancer patients telling stories of hope could
provide powerful insights into their mindsets and
perspectives.
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QDA Method #2: Narrative Analysis

In other words, narrative analysis is about paying

attention to the stories that people tell – and more
importantly, the way they tell them.
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QDA Method #2: Narrative Analysis

Of course, the narrative approach has its weaknesses, just

like all analysis methods.
✖ Sample sizes are generally quite small due to the
time-consuming process of capturing narratives.
✖ Researcher bias can have a strong influence.
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QDA Method #3: Discourse Analysis

Discourse analysis is all about analyzing language

within its social context. In other words, analyzing
language – such as a conversation, a speech, etc. –
within the culture and society it takes place in.
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QDA Method #3: Discourse Analysis

To truly understand these conversations or speeches, the

culture and history of those involved in the
communication is important.
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QDA Method #3: Discourse Analysis

By using discourse analysis, you can identify how culture,

history or power dynamics (to name a few) have an
effect on the way concepts are spoken about.
So, if your research aims and objectives involve
understanding culture or power dynamics, discourse
analysis can be a powerful method.
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QDA Method #3: Discourse Analysis

✖ the potential use of discourse analysis is vast

✖ it’s important to have a very specific research question
(or questions) in mind when analyzing your data and
looking for patterns and themes
✖ discourse analysis can also be very time consuming as
you need to sample the data to the point of saturation
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QDA Method #4: Thematic Analysis

Thematic analysis looks at patterns of meaning in a data

set.
Thematic analysis takes bodies of data (which are often
quite large) and groups them according to similarities –
in other words, themes. These themes help us make sense
of the content and derive meaning from it.
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QDA Method #4: Thematic Analysis

For example, with thematic analysis, you could analyze

100 evaluative reviews of a professor to find out what
students think about him. By reviewing the data, you
would then identify the themes that crop up repeatedly
within the data – for example, “proactive” or
“considerate”.
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QDA Method #4: Thematic Analysis

Thematic analysis can be pretty useful for finding out

about people’s experiences, views, and opinions.
Therefore, if your research aims and objectives involve
understanding people’s experience or view of something,
thematic analysis can be a great choice.
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QDA Method #4: Thematic Analysis

✖ Since thematic analysis is a bit of an exploratory

process, it’s not unusual for your research questions to
develop, or even change as you progress through the
analysis.
✖ In other words, thematic analysis can be quite time-
consuming – but for a good reason.
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QDA Method #5: Grounded theory (GT)

Grounded Theory is powerful qualitative

analysis method where the intention is to
create a new theory (or theories) using the data
at hand, through a series of “tests” and
“revisions.”
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QDA Method #5: Grounded theory (GT)

For example, you could try to develop a theory

about what factors influence students to read &
watch a YouTube video about qualitative
analysis.
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QDA Method #5: Grounded theory (GT)

In other words, your analysis must develop

from the ground up.
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QDA Method #5: Grounded theory (GT)

In Grounded Theory, you start with a general

overarching question about a given population –
for example, senior high students. Then you begin
to analyze a small sample – for example, five
students in a school. Ideally, this sample should be
reasonably representative of the broader
population. You’d then interview these students to
identify what factors lead them to watch the
video.
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QDA Method #5: Grounded theory (GT)

After analyzing the interview data, a general

hypothesis or pattern could emerge. For example,
you might notice that students are more likely to
read a post about qualitative methods if they are
just starting on their thesis journey, or if they have
an upcoming test about research methods.
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QDA Method #5: Grounded theory (GT)

From here, you’ll look for another small sample – for

example, five more students in a different strand –
and see whether this pattern or this hypothesis holds
true for them. If not, you’ll look for commonalities
and adapt your theory accordingly. As this process
continues, the theory develops. What’s important
with grounded theory is that the theory develops
from the data – not from some preconceived idea.
You need to let the data speak for itself.
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QDA Method #5: Grounded theory (GT)

Some argue that there’s a tricky circularity to

Grounded Theory. For it to work, in principle, you
should know as little as possible regarding the
research question and population, so that you reduce
the bias in your interpretation. However, in many
circumstances, it’s also thought to be unwise to
approach a research question without knowledge of
the current literature. In other words, it’s a bit of a
“chicken or the egg” situation.
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QDA Method #6:

Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)

IPA is designed to help you understand the personal

experiences of a subject (for example, a person or
group of people) concerning a major life event, an
experience or a situation. This event or experience is
the “phenomenon” or phenomena that makes up the
“P” in IPA.
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QDA Method #6:

Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)

✖ IPA is a great choice if your research involves

analysing people’s personal experiences of
something that happened to them.
✖ IPA is subject–centred.
✖ Sample size will generally be very small with IPA.
✖ Another thing to be aware of with IPA is personal
bias.
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How to choose the right analysis method

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Selecting the right qualitative analysis

method largely depends on your research
aims, objectives and questions.
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TRIANGULATION
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Start by reviewing your research aims, objectives and

research questions to assess what exactly you’re trying
to find out – then select a method that fits.
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✖ Content analysis, a straightforward method that blends a

little bit of quant into a primarily qualitative analysis.
✖ Narrative analysis, which is about analysing how stories are
told.
✖ Discourse analysis – which is about analysing
conversations and interactions.
✖ Thematic analysis – which is about identifying themes and
patterns.
✖ Grounded theory – which is about starting from scratch
with a specific question and using the data alone to build a
theory in response to that question.
✖ IPA – which is about understanding people’s unique
experiences of a phenomenon.
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Quantitative Data Analysis

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Quantitative data analysis simply

means analysing data that is
numbers-based – or data that can
be easily “converted” into numbers
without losing any meaning.
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What is quantitative analysis used for?

✖ measure differences between groups

✖ assess relationships between variables
✖ test hypotheses in a scientifically rigorous way
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How does quantitative analysis

work?
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The two “branches” of quantitative analysis

✖ descriptive statistics
✖ inferential statistics
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Population
Sample
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Descriptive Statistics

✖ Descriptive statistics serve a simple but critically

important role in your research – to describe your
data set.
✖ They help you understand the details of your
sample.
✖ Descriptive statistics don’t aim to make inferences
or predictions about the entire population –
they’re purely interested in the details of your
specific sample.
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What kind of statistics are usually covered in

Descriptive Statistics?

✖ Mean – this is simply the mathematical average of

a range of numbers.
✖ Median – this is the midpoint in a range of
numbers when the numbers are arranged in
numerical order. If the data set makes up an odd
number, then the median is the number right in
the middle of the set. If the data set makes up an
even number, then the median is the midpoint
between the two middle numbers.
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What kind of statistics are usually covered in

Descriptive Statistics?

✖ Mode – this is simply the most commonly

occurring number in the data set.
✖ Standard deviation – this metric indicates how
dispersed a range of numbers is. In other words,
how close all the numbers are to the mean (the
average).
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What kind of statistics are usually covered in

Descriptive Statistics?
○ In cases where most of the numbers are quite close to the
average, the standard deviation will be relatively low.
○ Conversely, in cases where the numbers are scattered all over
the place, the standard deviation will be relatively high.
✖ Skewness. As the name suggests, skewness indicates how
symmetrical a range of numbers is. In other words, do they tend to
cluster into a smooth bell curve shape in the middle of the graph, or
do they skew to the left or right?
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Simply put, descriptive statistics are really important,

even though the statistical techniques used are fairly
basic. All too often ,students skimming over the
descriptives in their eagerness to get to the more
exciting inferential methods, and then landing up with
some very flawed results.
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Inferential Statistics

✖ Inferential statistics aim to make inferences about

the population.
✖ Inferential statistics to make predictions about
what you’d expect to find in the full population.
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What kind of prediction ?

✖ predictions about differences between groups

✖ relationships between variables .
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In other words, inferential statistics allow you to

connect the dots and make predictions about what
you expect to see in the real world population, based
on what you observe in your sample data. For this
reason, inferential statistics are used for hypothesis
testing.
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What statistics are usually used in this branch?

✖ T-Tests. T-tests compare the means (the averages) of

two groups of data to assess whether they’re
statistically significantly different. In other words, do
they have significantly different means, standard
deviations and skewness. This type of testing is very
useful for understanding just how similar or different
two groups of data are.
✖ ANOVA, which stands for “analysis of variance”. This
test is similar to a T-test in that it compares the means
of various groups, but ANOVA allows you to analyse
multiple groups, not just two groups.
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What statistics are usually used in this branch?

✖ Correlation analysis. This type of analysis assesses the

relationship between two variables. In other words, if
one variable increases, does the other variable also
increase, decrease or stay the same.
✖ Regression analysis. This is quite similar to correlation
in that it assesses the relationship between variables,
but it goes a step further to understand cause and effect
between variables, not just whether they move together.
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How to choose the right analysis method?

To choose the right statistical methods, you need to think

about two important factors:
✖ 1. The type of quantitative data you have (specifically,
level of measurement and the shape of the data). And,
✖ 2. Your research questions and hypotheses.
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Factor 1 – Data type

✖ Different statistical methods and techniques require

different types of data.
✖ If you try to use a statistical method that doesn’t support
the data type you have, your results will be largely
meaningless.
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Factor 2: Your research questions

✖ The nature of your research questions and research

hypotheses will heavily influence which statistical methods
and techniques you should use.
✖ If you’re just interested in understanding the attributes of
your sample (as opposed to the entire population), then
descriptive statistics are probably all you need.
✖ On the other hand, if you aim to understand differences
between groups or relationships between variables and to
infer or predict outcomes in the population, then you’ll
likely need both descriptive statistics and inferential
statistics.
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✖ Quantitative data analysis is all about analysing number-

based data (which includes categorical and numerical data)
using various statistical techniques.
✖ The two main branches of statistics are descriptive statistics
and inferential statistics. Descriptives describe your sample,
whereas inferentials make predictions about what you’ll find in
the population.
✖ Common descriptive statistical methods include mean
(average), median, standard deviation and skewness.
✖ Common inferential statistical methods include t-tests, ANOVA,
correlation and regression analysis.
✖ To choose the right statistical methods and techniques, you
need to consider the type of data you’re working with, as well
as your research questions and hypotheses.
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Any questions?

Thanks for listening!