Dr Alistair

ANALYZING QUALITATIVE Benson

DATA

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 OBJECTIVES OF SESSION

 To highlight the requirement to consider the need for the analysis of

qualitative data

 To understand potential problems concerning qualitative data vis a

vis validity

 To provide an introduction and overview of three key approaches to

analysis

 To consider how qualitative data can be presented as findings

 To discuss the coding exercise of the mock interview extract provided

 And as always answer student queries

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 WHAT IS QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS?

 Lewins, Taylor and Gibbs (2010) suggest that qda

‘is the range of processes and procedures that have been

collected into some form of explanation, understanding or
interpretation of the people and the situations we are
investigating.”

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 JORGENSEN’S VIEW (1989:107)

 ‘Analysis is a breaking up, separating, or disassembling of

research materials into pieces, parts, elements or units. With
facts broken down into manageable pieces the researcher
sorts and sifts them, searching for types, classes, sequences,
processes, patterns or wholes. The aim of this process is to
assemble or reconstruct the data in a meaningful or
comprehensible fashion’.

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 A WORD ABOUT EPISTEMOLOGY

 Researchers often stress the close connection between qualitative

data and the interpretative or phenomenological paradigm. In this
sense the stress is on people’s attitudes, interpretations, feelings
and why they feel that way etc.

 In reality we often collect qualitative data that concerns ‘objective

facts’ as well – usually in combination with attitudes,
interpretations and feelings.

 As we will see it is not compulsory to follow an inductive or

grounded theory approach.

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 PROBLEMS WITH THE HUMAN AS
ANALYST (SADLER 1981)
 Data overload
 First impressions last
 Information availability limits knowledge
 Tendency to ignore conflicting data
 Tendency to discount the novel and unusual
 Sources may not have the same level of reliability
 Devaluation of missing data
 Tendency to over or under react to new information
 Tendency to compare with hypothetical base
 Over confidence in judgement
 Co-occurrence is taken for correlation
 Inconsistency is data analysis
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D I F F E R E NT WA Y S O F AN A L Y S I N G D AT A (CRABTREE & MILLER 1992)

 Quasi st at i s t i cal – co unt in g f re qu e ncie s of word s or p hra se s e . g .

c ont e n t an al ysi s

 Template approaches
 Codes are determined apriori or from an initial read of the data
 Codes are used as ‘bins’ for identified extracts of text
 Matrix analysis where networks; flow charts and diagrams add to the
description

 Editing approaches
 More interpretive and flexible
 Interpretation of meaning
 Grounded theory approach

 Immersion approaches – literary analysis

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 TEMPLATE APPROACHES

 More realist in approach/top down

 Template is populated with key themes derived from:

 Theory, concepts and models which are to form the basis of analysis
 Prior empirical knowledge of issues
 From policy documents either at organizational or governmental level

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 CONTINUED…

 Basics - How to do it?

 Use the template’s themes to identify all instances from the data
collected
 These extracts of data will have to be reduced – for example for
institutions each development is identified not each time it is
mentioned – this of course could indicate its importance!
 You may identify how themes are linked together
 You may have additional important themes that emerge from the
data which may or may not warrant inclusion. A template approach
does not preclude induction.

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 EDITING APPROACHES

 Based on inductive or grounded theory building

 Useful where we do not know or fully understand a

phenomena

 We won’t have a well worked out set of ideas for how to

understand the data – we do know that the data could be
important for building new understandings. For example how
performance systems may create perverse incentives to game

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 CONTINUED…

 Basics- how to do it?

 Identify individual examples of what your are interested in e.g. team
working
 Start coding i.e. placing data under a code ‘team working’
 Usually we would need a negative – ‘not team working’ as we identify
examples of poor team working
 In a second iteration we might break down examples into more
meaningful themes such as following or breaking rules; prior
experience or expressed belief in the value of team working
 In a third iteration we might start linking this with other data to
develop patterns

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EXAMPLE OF OPEN CODING

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 COMPARING TEMPLATE AND EDITING
APPROACHES
 Whilst they represent different approaches in reality they are
often used together
 There are no set sequences of events, both types will likely
need coding or links identifying on more than one occasion
 The template approach can help to create and maintain the
thread running through a project from rationale to theory to
data collection and analysis and conclusion drawing
 Both approaches force you to focus on the data collected
rather than making quick assumptions about what you have
found out
 Both approaches require you to do the thinking about what
the data actually represent in terms of new knowledge in the
context of your MBA project!

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SEIDEL’S (1998) MODEL ADAPTED

Notic
e
thing
s

Analysis is
an
iteration
between
these
Collect
Reflec things
t

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 SEIDEL’S (1998) QDA PROCESS

 Seidel’s model brings to the forefront the need to focus on

thinking about the data, coding it for a purpose and being
able to understand the importance of findings in relation to
your own aims and objectives for the project.

 Iterative and progressive

 Recursive
 Holographic – each step contains the entire process. When you
notice things you are already mentally collecting and thinking
about those things

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 FRAMEWORK ANALYSIS (RITCHIE AND
SPENCER 1994)
Familiarisation Whole or partial transcription and
reading of the data
Identifying a thematic framework Based on apriori and open coding based
on 1st stage
Indexing Basically coding

Charting Charting – basically a template for data

display
Mapping and Interpretation Understanding the data through
patterns and association.

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 FRAMEWORK ANALYSIS (RITCHIE AND
SPENCER 1994)
 Approach developed in applied policy research
 It has clear stages and so appears visible and systematic
 It attempts to gather data and analyse it for a specific
purpose and data needs are prescribed
 Analysis proceeds through apriori codes and inductive
analysis
 This pragmatic approach allows for specific features to be
focused upon as well as being capable of being an open to
new learning

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 REFERENCES

 Lewins, Taylor and Gibb (2010) What is Qualitative data analysis (QDA)
Online QDA website onlineqda.hud.ac.uk (available on BB9)
 Jorgensen (1989)
 Sadler (1981)
 Crabtree and Miller (1992) Doing Qualitative Research
 Seidel (1998) Appendix E - Qualitative Data Analysis Qualis Resarch
(available on BB9)
 Ritchie and Spe ncer (1994) Qualitative data analysis for applied policy
research in Bryman and Burgess, eds Analyzing qualitative data London
Routledge p173-194 (good summary can be found in Lacey and Luff
 Lacey and Luff (2001) Q ualitative data analysis
 Burnard, Gill, Stewart, Treasure and Chadwick (2008) Analysing and
presenting qualitative data British Dental Journal Volume 204:8 pp429-432
(Useful as an example of template analysis)
 Pope, Ziebland, and Mays (2000) Analysing qualitative data British Medical
Journal Jan 8 320 pp114-116 (Useful as an example of editing approach)

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