Qualitative Data Analysis I & II

Week 7: Qualitative Data Analysis

Introduction to Qualitative Data Analysis

The real mystique of qualitative inquiry lies in the process of using data rather than in the proces of gathering data (Wolcott). But using or analysing begins with gathering, because you begin to see patterns.

Patterns in Research

Patterns: some you se because of the question you aim to answer

Patterns: some are informed by the theoretical frameworks you are familiar with

patterns: some are completely unanticipated, emerged from the data

Analysis and Theory

Interpreation (and theory building) is coming with an account of what the pattern means (Abstract)

Theory refers to a system of ideas or statements explaining some phenomena

Analysing Data

6 Main Qualitative Analysis Methods

1. Content analysis

2. Narrative Analysis

3. Discourse Analysis

4. Thematic Analysis (for this project)

   1. Main reference would be Braun and Clarke in the reading list

5. Grounded Theory

6. intepretive phenomenological analysis

Thematic Analysis

Non academic definition

• an idea the recurs in or pervades a work of art ot literature

• the subject of a talk, piece of writing

Academic Definition

• A theme captures somethinf inportant about the data in realtion to the research question and represents somelevel of patterned response or meaning within the data set (Braun and Clarke)

• Thematic analysis is a method for identifying, analysing, and erporting patterns (themes) within data

The most commonly recurring ideas are not necessarily themes

How to do Thematic Analysis

A general thematic analysis approach

1. Become familiar with the material

2. Generate Codes

3. Search for Themes

4. Review Themes

5. Define and name thoeries

6. Produce report

Generating Codes

Data: interviews, fieldnotes

Fundamental step in your data analysis is CODING

Coding refers to discerning small elements in your data that can retain meaning if lifted out of context (Ely et al). That is, it refers to reducing data into meaningful segments and assigning names of the segments

Codes are concepts and these concepts vary in their concreteness/abstractness as well as their emic/etic nature

“There’s just no place in this country for illegal immigrants. Round them up and send those criminals back to where they came from”

Examples of codes

• In-vivo code: “No place”

• Descriptive code: Immigration

• Values code: Xenophobia

Project Notes

• When writing your research, write the paradigm which it sits in (interpretivist/positivist), and the philosophical assumption (epistomological/axiological/ontological)

• Find the proper definition for method triangulation

• Use these words in your essay (traingulation, theoretical saturation, iteration)

Week 8:

/Dynamics of Coding

Don’t start with strong assumptions; however, your initial and ongoing coding can be influenced both by the data itself and by

Your research purpose or research questions

Prior literature relevant to your research question; and

The qualitative research tradition in which you are working

1. Phenomomenology

2. hermeneutics

3. Postmodernism

4. Critical Theory

5. Aemiotics

6. Neopositivism

How do consumers cope with style scarcity?

“The truth is, if we don’t fix it, I’ll spend months if not years looking for a replacement"

• Code: Mending and hard won replacements

What factors influence how consumers cope?

Non, my friends, fat fashion is in short supply - we are talking resource scarcity here”

• Code: scarcity, access

Exercise: Clustering Codes

• Overextension, Fatigue, lack of supports

• Expectations & Pressure

• Uncertainty

• Isolation/Solitude

• Hostility

• barriers

• Uncertainty