SESSION 10
QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
Dr ZHENG Weijia
Offi ce ： IB941
Email ： [email protected]
Session Overview
• Types of qualitative data
• Getting data into an analyzable form
• Overview of analytical approaches
• Analysis ‘in the field’
• Methods of analysis
• Presenting qualitative research
Qualitative data analysis
What does qualitative data
look/sound like?
Qualitative data analysis
Which of these is NOT qualitative data?
a. A frequency table
b. A photograph
c. A diary
d. An interview tape
Analysis begins in the field
Researcher is the data collection
‘instrument’
• Your own thoughts, feelings,
reflections should be noted at the time
- Field diaries (ethnography)
- Summaries & self-memos (interviews/
focus groups)
• Take care to be systematic and avoid
‘sensationalism’
• Reflexivity/ awareness
Getting data into
an analyzable form
• Transcription: getting data ready to analyse
- Typing up the content of interview tapes
- They are not ‘the data’ themselves
- Emphasis/ tone, etc.
• Listen & listen again (short of time? Miss out
transcribing)
• Notation
- Consistent marking of meaningful ‘non-textual’
information
- Links to your method of analysis
The analytical process
• Immersion: listen/transcribe?
• Look for patterns: inductive or
deductive?
• Develop propositions: Theory-test?
Theory-build?
• ……
Overview of
analytical approaches
What is meant by the term ‘inductive
research’ ？
a. Data is gathered and codes applied
b. Data is gathered without prior
theoretical assumptions
c. Data is gathered and theoretical
assumptions are looked for in the data
d. Data is gathered with clear theoretical
assumptions in mind
Overview of
analytical approaches
When would it be appropriate to use an
inductive research approach?
a. When you are gathering qualitative data
b. When you are unsure of your sample size
c. When you are unsure of the theoretical
framework
d. When you are unsure of the important issues
Overview of
analytical approaches
Deductive approaches to analysing
qualitative data
• Looking for specific things in the data
to test the hypothesis gives you a
clear direction to your research
• Not a common strategy, but often
implicitly done
Overview of
analytical approaches
Quantifying qualitative data
• Linked to a deductive research strategy
• Why would you want to do this?
- Pattern matching: looking for cause and effect
- Content analysis: where frequency indicates
the strength of a variable
- Where richness of data is less important:
Consider quantitative method in the first
place?
Overview of
analytical approaches
Deductive approaches to analysing
qualitative data
• Theoretical framework or ‘pre-
understanding’?
- Gummesson (2000): research is the
route from preunderstanding to
understanding
E.g., systematic, thorough, detailed analysis;
not first impressions/ selective interpretation
Overview of
analytical approaches
Inductive approaches to analyzing qualitative
data
• All techniques basically do the same thing:
make sense of participants’ perspectives
• No ‘one best way’
- Reduce data to make sense of it by dividing
into meaningful chunks, and/or…
- ...take care to retain richness and context
• Coding & holistic analysis
Coding
What is meant by the phrase “coding”?
a. Breaking the data into chunks and assigning
a meaningful label to each fragment
b. Anonymising the data by swapping
participants’ names for numbers
c. Entering the data into a computer analysis
programme
d. Converting your data into a quantitative form
Coding
Mapping, collapsing & expanding codes
e.g., Work-life balance (theme)
Coding
Use of qualitative data analysis software
E.g., Nvivo
• Helpful tools to manage and analyze the data
• Especially useful when: the data set is large;
data analysis approach is complex (e.g., a
combination of both deductive and inductive
approaches)
• But still: the researcher does all the
analytical work by him/herself!
Look for patterns
Thematic analysis: A summary
• Creating and developing a
hierarchical outline of data codes or
categories representing themes
revealed in the data collected and the
relationships between these.
• This is revised throughout data
analysis. New codes may be added,
some may be deleted, or they may be
switched from one level to another.
Look for patterns
Thematic analysis: Six steps (Braun &
Clarke, 2006)
1. Familiarising oneself with the data
2. Generating initial codes
3. Searching for themes
4. Reviewing themes
5. Defining and naming themes
6. Producing the report
Often: a recursive process instead of a linear one!
Now what?
• Develop propositions
E.g., Work-life balance is important to a sense
of being a modern-day professional account?
• Thematic analysis:
- Look for further instances (and
contradictions) in data, and continue
amending
More ‘textual’ methods
of analysis
1) Conversation analysis
- Detailed utterance by utterance
analysis
- Patterns of conversation important:
talking over, agreeing, silence, etc.
- Reveal motive, emotion, power, etc.
More ‘textual’ methods
of analysis
2) Narrative analysis
- Almost the opposite: holistic understanding
of the data
- Story-telling/ life-history
- Context dependent, maybe multiple tellings
• Two types of narrative
- Ask people to tell stories
- Analyse people’s texts as stories
More ‘textual’ methods
of analysis
2) Narrative analysis (contd.)
Modes of analysis:
- Meaning: as done with thematic analysis
- Structure: linguistic tropes, plot, etc.
- Interaction: co-production of dialogue
(e.g., in focus groups)
- Performance: How story is told (dramatic,
factual, emotive, etc.)
What is a discourse?
a) A pre-defined narrative structure
b) A set of researcher assumptions about
a situation
c) Implicit cultural assumptions about
phenomena
d) Stories about culture
“Customer satisfaction is the number
one priority in business activity.”
This is:
a) Consumer sovereignty
b) Customer relationship management
c) Customer satisfaction
d) Consumer behaviour
More ‘textual’ methods
of analysis
3) Discourse analysis
Similar to some forms of narrative
analysis but…
- Social action/ beliefs studied through
stories/language
- Focuses on the power relationships that
produce social effects
- Explores how these discourses are
produced, maintained and legitimated
Summary of qualitative
analysis
Analysis is almost always about
interpreting meaning from data
• Deductive vs. inductive
• Coding & holistic analysis
• Inductive methods broadly similar
- Thematic analysis
- Analytic induction
Presenting qualitative
research
• Plausibility of research as presented in
report based on….
- Inclusion of (enough) data itself
- Logical interpretation
- Reflexive approach by researcher
Do we know enough about method and the
researcher to assess for ourselves the
potential biases in the research?
- Convincing content and structure
Presenting qualitative
research
What form of data is most appropriate to
include in the ‘findings’ section of a
qualitative report?
a. Interview transcripts
b. Tabular presentation
c. Quotes from the participants
d. The researchers’ interpretations
e. The codes used to analyse the data
Presenting qualitative
research
• Structure & content
- Thematic presentation: a chapter or
section per theme in the data
- Made up of related codes
E.g., Work-life balance (theme)…
Presenting qualitative
research
Work-life balance (theme)…
Presenting qualitative
research
• Structure & content
- Could also arrange by research
question (esp. for deductive research)
- Data arranged to ‘tell the story of the
theme’: logical progression, show links
between codes, explain reasoning,
develop argument for proposition
- Include ‘voices’ of participants:
quotes– anonymised!
Emotional labour in the Chinese
hospitality industry
Chapter Five: Discussion and analysis
5.1 Overview of findings
5.2 Theme 1: importance of emotional labour
5.3 Theme 2: formalisation of emotional labour
5.4 Theme 3: consequences of performance
5.5 Theme 4: coping strategies
5.6 Theme 5: the role of training
5.7 Summary of key points
Case study:
Communicating bad news at Abco
Work in pairs and discuss the following:
• Devise categories to label the data related to:
- Does Abco have a close-knit community in Southtown?
- Problems with rumors & informal communication.
- Training and preparation of line managers.
• Do any relationships or patterns begin to emerge
in the data, and if so what are these?
• What are the important themes that you feel stand
out in your categorisation which you would seek to
explore in subsequent interviews?
Case study:
Communicating bad news at Abco
Does Abco have a close-knit community in
Southtown?
• out-of-work social interaction
• partners in the same employment
• contacts between personnel in firms in the same
industry
• …
Case study:
Communicating bad news at Abco
Problems with rumors & informal communication
• the generation of rumours
• use of the grapevine
• the perceptiveness of employees
• openness of formal communication
• managerial strategies
• types of employee reactions (uncertainty and anger)
Case study:
Communicating bad news at Abco
Training and preparation of line managers
• Preparation
• Sensitivity
• Employee reactions (violence, denial, despair, anger)
• Individual differences
• handling ‘high flyers’
• Language
• Logistics
• Location and learning
• …
Case study:
Communicating bad news at Abco
Do any relationships or patterns begin to emerge in
the data, and if so what are these?
• employees work/home propinquity & social interaction
• working in different firms in the same industry & the
generation of informal communication
• feelings of uncertainty & the generation of informal
communication (‘the grapevine’)
• openness of communication & employees’ reactions
• the nature of notification of bad news & the generation
of employees’ reactions
• …
Case study:
Communicating bad news at Abco
What are the important themes that you feel stand
out in your categorisation which you would seek to
explore in subsequent interviews?
• Will depend on the particular emphasis that
researcher placed, in terms of the categories chosen
and the relationships identified.
e.g., relationship between the nature of notification of
bad news & the generation of employees’ reactions
Next…
• Read Chapter 5 before the next session
• 4th group presentation in the next
session
• Register you participation in class
interactions before you leave!
