Qualitative Data Analysis

From Start to Finish

Jamie Harding

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781526402790
• eBook ISBN: 9781526453419
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Research & Methodology
• Index: Social Sciences

This is the ideal book to get you up and running with the basics of qualitative data analysis. It breaks everything down into a series of simple steps and introduces the practical tools and techniques you need to turn your transcripts into meaningful research.

Using multidisciplinary data from interviews and focus groups Jamie Harding provides clear guidance on how to apply key research skills such as making summaries, identifying similarities, drawing comparisons and using codes.

The book sets out real world applicable advice, provides easy to follow best practice and helps you to:

·Manage and sort your data

·Find your argument and define your conclusions

·Answer your research question

·Write up your research for assessment and dissemination

Clear, pragmatic and honest this book will give you the perfect framework to start understanding your qualitative data and to finish your research project.

Introduction to Stage 1 Research Design and Preparation

It is very common to see students start their research project by thinking about who they are going to interview and what questions they are going to ask. These are important considerations and it is great to see students who are excited about going out to collect data. However, it is important to take time to think about the issues that are discussed in this section of the book before you approach your potential respondents. Careful design and preparation of your study will maximise the chances that your data collection and analysis brings you the type of findings that you are hoping for.

Some of the topics discussed in this section, e.g. the distinction between taking a primarily inductive and primarily deductive approach, may seem a little abstract, but they have a bearing on more practical issues such as how you decide on the questions to ask respondents. Other topics may seem to be more straightforward – such as whether to collect data through interviews, focus groups or by some other means – but there are still a range of factors that you should consider carefully before making a decision.

I encourage you to read this stage of the book carefully so that, by the time you begin to collect your data, you have the peace of mind of knowing that the approach you are taking is the most appropriate one for your research.

Chapter 1 Introduction to Qualitative Social Research

In this chapter, you will learn:

• The many forms that social research can take
• What a research project might look like, from start to finish
• The range of settings where social research can be conducted
• The difference between methodology and methods
• The different principles underlying quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods and critical approaches

Chapter outline

Many students begin research by thinking about the practicalities – e.g. who am I going to collect data from and how am I going to collect it? While these are important questions, there is a crucial stage before this one where you should be aware of the different approaches that can be taken to research; these approaches reflect different views of the social world and how it can be investigated. Reading this chapter will enable you to justify your chosen approach and articulate clearly what your research is trying to achieve.

What is social research?

Social research involves the collection and/or analysis of data which is, either directly or indirectly, about people and the relationships between them. It shares few of the methods of research into the natural sciences, beyond some types of statistical analysis, because – unlike scientific phenomena such as heat and electrons – humans do not act in a consistent, predictable manner.

Social science research cannot boast the same sort of high-profile achievements as research in the natural sciences: for example, the invention of the light bulb or penicillin. However, some pieces of social research have had a major impact on society. For example, at the end of the nineteenth century, the widespread belief in the UK that charitable help was all that was needed to ensure that the poor were adequately provided for was shaken by the findings of Seebohm Rowntree that many families in York did not have an adequate diet, with Charles Booth reaching a similar conclusion in London (Townsend, 1979: 33). Another major study of poverty by Peter Townsend in the 1970s provoked great debate when he wrote that:

The chief conclusion of this report is that poverty is more extensive than is generally or officially believed and has to be understood not only as an inevitable feature of severe social inequality but also as a particular consequence of actions by the rich to preserve and enhance their wealth and so deny it to others. (Townsend, 1979: 893)

The differences between social research and other forms of research can be illustrated in the case of people who have cancer. It is medical research that has brought about the huge and wonderful increase in the number of people who survive this illness, as researchers have developed understanding of the nature of the disease and trialled possible cures. However, although being able to treat cancer successfully is clearly the most important issue, there are many factors that affect the wellbeing of patients that could best be addressed by a social researcher, for example:

• the manner in which patients tell those close to them that they have cancer and the reaction of their family and friends;
• the difficulties that people face in returning to work after treatment;
• the willingness of people to support cancer charities after they have been successfully treated;
• the long-term impact on children if their parents do not survive cancer.

Bachman and Schutt (2012: 314) make a helpful distinction between two aims of social research – to advance knowledge and to shape social policy. Where research is designed to advance knowledge, there is unlikely to be any obvious action that arises from it:

The idea is that developing valid knowledge about how society is organized or how we live our lives does not tell us how society should be organized or how we should live our lives. (Bachman and Schutt, 2012: 314)

To take an example, the research of Bawadi and Al-Hamdan (2017) into the cultural beliefs of Jordanian women during childbearing identified convictions that giving birth is a blessing of Allah and that He should be prayed to during labour, that special consideration should be given to the welfare of expectant mothers, that childbirth is a time for maternal self-renewal and that breastfeeding is a sacrifice that will be rewarded by Allah. The aim of the research was primarily to increase understanding of this group among health care professionals rather than to make specific recommendations for change.

In other cases, research can lead to specific suggestions for action. For example, Leggett’s (2017) study of childhood creativity led her to make recommendations as to how this could be encouraged by educators: for example by supporting independent or collaborative problem solving (Leggett, 2017: 851).

A very wide range of topics can be covered by social research and there are a great number of methods that can be employed, with new and innovative approaches constantly being developed. To take one example of an innovative approach, O’Neill and Hubbard (2010) undertook a piece of research with asylum seekers, refugees and undocumented migrants which involved their respondents drawing a map of the route from their home to a special place. They then walked somewhere unfamiliar, noting landmarks, places that reminded them of home and places that they found fascinating or comforting.

However, for you as a new researcher this may seem a very ambitious type of undertaking and it is entirely appropriate that your first research project will involve more conventional approaches, such as collecting data through interviews and/or focus groups.

Literature, secondary data and primary data

Before considering further what a research project might look like in practice, it is important to distinguish between literature, secondary data and primary data. This is a crucial distinction to understand before starting any research and one that students are often uncertain about.

Literature is existing, published material on a subject which can take the form of books, academic journals, research reports, newspaper articles, articles on websites, etc. Reviewing the existing literature is an important part of any research project.

Secondary data is data that has already been collected by someone else, such as interview or focus group transcripts, but which is available to you to conduct your own analysis. There is a long tradition of secondary analysis in quantitative research, where large datasets can be stored in an SPSS or Excel file with no information that could enable an individual respondent to be identified. Students and academics can access this data and undertake analysis of it in order to address their own research interests. There are a number of reasons why secondary analysis of qualitative data is more problematic (see Heaton, 2004: 29–31) – for example, information often has to be removed to protect the anonymity of respondents – but there are several thousand datasets available in the UK Data Archive (Wincup, 2017: 91), so it is worth investigating whether there is any secondary data available that you could analyse for your own project. Secondary data analysis has the potential to save all the time involved in data collection, although it is important to note that using data collected by another researcher can be frustrating because their purposes will have been slightly different to your own: you may often find yourself wishing that they had asked different questions to respondents.

Primary data is data that you collect yourself, usually by asking people questions in various forms (i.e. interviews, focus group or questionnaires) or by undertaking observation. Much of this book assumes that you are collecting some primary data as part of your research project – as is required by many universities.

A model of the research process (deductive)

Although the key aim of this book is to support, advise and encourage you in the analysis of interview and focus group data, such analysis usually takes place towards the end of a research project. So it is helpful to consider the different stages of the research process and where qualitative data analysis fits within it.

All research projects are individual and the process by which they are conducted will vary. However, many take a pathway similar to the one shown in the model below. This model describes a deductive approach; the difference between induction and deduction, and the changes to the model for an inductive piece of research, are discussed in Chapter 2. Of course, there may be good reason why your research cannot follow this process exactly, but it is a useful model to try to follow to get you started. The full model is presented below, together with a brief summary in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1

1. Decide on the broad topic area to be covered by the research.
2. Search through existing literature on the topic, looking both for practical findings and a discussion of the body (or bodies) of theory that can best aid understanding of the topic.
3. Determine a research question which fits within a relevant body of theory and which, if answered successfully, will add to what is already known about the topic.
4. Decide whether the research question could best be answered using quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods (the rest of this model assumes that the chosen methodology is qualitative).
5. Consider which form or forms of data collection are most feasible and are most likely to contribute to answering the research question.
6. Obtain permission for the research from the relevant ethics body or bodies (usually your own university).
7. Determine who the respondents should be and whether they need to be contacted through one or more gatekeepers.
8. IF THERE IS A GATEKEEPER: Seek to negotiate access with the gatekeeper(s).
9. IF ACCESS CANNOT BE NEGOTIATED WITH THE GATEKEEPER: Keep trying until you find a group of respondents who you can gain access to.
10. Obtain the best information available about the potential population of respondents.
11. Determine whether it is possible to collect data from the entire population or whether a sample must be chosen.
12. IF A SAMPLE IS NEEDED: Determine, and put into practice, the most appropriate sampling strategy.
13. Prepare for the data collection, e.g. by drawing up topic guides and probes for interviews and focus groups.
14. Pilot the data collection on people who will not be involved in the research; adjust the data collection and analysis methods where weaknesses are indicated.
15. Approach the sample or population, explain the research to them and ask whether they are willing to take part, using as many ethically acceptable methods of encouraging participation as possible.
16. For those who are willing to take part, send them information about the research, ask them to sign an ethics form and make practical arrangements to collect the data from them.
17. If participation is lower than expected, consider ways that it can be increased such as offering incentives or recruiting further participants in a manner that is consistent with the original sampling strategy.
18. Collect the data.
19. Transcribe the data (you will usually do this yourself, unless you are fortunate enough to have funding to use a transcription service).
20. Read through the data carefully before beginning to analyse it.
21. Decide which approach(es) to analysis may be most appropriate, but be ready to review this decision in the light of the early experience of the analysis.
22. Begin the analysis, while being reflective and making notes of key decisions.
23. Take the early steps in the analysis, such as making summaries of cases and using the constant comparative method.
24. Begin to reach simple findings about similarities and differences that are evident in the data.
25. Search for more complex, conceptual findings.
26. Undertake checks on the validity of your findings to ensure they accurately reflect the data.
27. Produce the research output.

This may seem like a daunting set of tasks but it is important to remember that some of the steps can be undertaken quite quickly and some will not be necessary in every research project. Some projects involve answering more than one research question, but this model assumes that there is only one.

An example using the model of the research process (deductive)

To demonstrate how the model might work, I will now discuss a research project that I conducted, showing how I put each of the stages into practice. The project was undertaken at a time when the government was giving high priority to moving homeless people into permanent housing – often via temporary accommodation projects. The funding it provided to local authorities and voluntary organisations was based on an assumption that the maximum lengt...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Acknowledgements
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• About the Author
• Acknowledgements
• Why You Need This Book: Getting Started
• Introduction to Stage 1 Research Design and Preparation
• Chapter 1 Introduction to Qualitative Social Research
• Chapter 2 Designing Qualitative Research: Your Key Questions
• Chapter 3 Practical Issues in Qualitative Research
• Introduction to Stage 2 Data Collection and Management
• Chapter 4 Collecting and Managing Interview Data
• Chapter 5 Collecting and Managing Focus Group Data
• Introduction to Stage 3 Data Analysis and Interpretation
• Chapter 6 A Brief Introduction to the Analysis of Qualitative Data
• Chapter 7 Step One for Analysing Interview Data – Making Summaries and Comparisons
• Chapter 8 Step Two for Analysing Your Interview Data – Using Codes
• Chapter 9 Step Three for Analysing Your Interview Data – Finding Conceptual Themes and Building Theory
• Chapter 10 Analysing Your Focus Group Data
• Chapter 11 Alternative Approaches to Analysing Qualitative Data
• Introduction to Stage 4 Dissemination
• Chapter 12 Writing About Your Qualitative Research
• Appendix 1 Interview with Fern
• Appendix 2 Additional Material on Writing about Your Qualitative Data
• Glossary
• References
• Index