Ten Questions to Ask of Your Data
One section of the week's study notes contains no sentence at all — only an unlabelled image holding ten speech bubbles. All ten are reproduced here as printed, including the misspelling in the sixth, with every piece of ordering and grouping marked as this library's rather than the source's.
A section of the notes with no prose in it
The week's study notes run to eight numbered sections. Section six is headed “Finding meaning from your data” — which names the activity a reader of an analysis chapter most needs help with — and then supplies no sentence, no definition, no procedure and no worked case. The heading is followed immediately by one image, and the image is followed immediately by the section seven heading.
The image is the same in every capture of the notes supplied, and it holds ten speech bubbles: ellipses with a tail, arranged three per row for three rows and then one alone on a fourth. That is the whole of the section, and the ten bubbles are the whole of what the notes say about finding meaning.
The ten, as printed
Below is every bubble, word for word. The numbers in the first column are this library's, for reference only; the source numbers nothing. They follow left-to-right, top-to-bottom reading order — which is itself an assumption about a figure that states no order, and is worth holding lightly.
THE TEN BUBBLES, VERBATIM (NUMBERING AND CLASSIFICATION THIS LIBRARY'S)
| # | Position in the figure | Text, as printed | Grammatical form |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Row 1, left | Group events places, people etc together if they seem to have similar patterns, themes or trends | Instruction |
| 2 | Row 1, centre | Note any patterns, themes and trends. Do the patterns, themes and trends make sense? | Both |
| 3 | Row 1, right | Compare and contrast data to establish similarities and differences between the data groups | Instruction |
| 4 | Row 2, left | Conduct simple counts to see if patterns, themes and trends can be grouped according to frequency of occurrence | Instruction |
| 5 | Row 2, centre | Using a table or matrix, look at interrelationships between different parts of the data | Instruction |
| 6 | Row 2, right | Are there any deviations from the patterns, themes and trends – and if so, can they be exolained? | Question |
| 7 | Row 3, left | Do the findings suggest that additional data needs to be collected? | Question |
| 8 | Row 3, centre | Build a logical chain of evidence by looking for relationships between the data | Instruction |
| 9 | Row 3, right | What interesting stories emerge from the data? | Question |
| 10 | Row 4, alone | Are the findings in agreement with findings from other studies? If not, can this be explained? | Question |
“Grammatical form” classifies each bubble as an instruction to do something, a question to ask of the data, or both. The source makes no such distinction and offers no classification of any kind.
No numbering, no arrows, no stated order
This is the figure's central difficulty, and it is not cosmetic. The ten are not order-neutral in content. Bubble 1 groups; bubble 2 notes and sense-checks what has been grouped; bubble 4 counts; bubble 6 looks for deviations from what bubbles 1 and 2 established; bubble 8 builds a chain from what came before; bubble 10 compares finished findings with other studies.
Nor does the week resolve it elsewhere. The same week gives a four-step model on one pair of slides and a three-stage diagram on the next, and neither mentions this figure. Those competing accounts are set out at the steps in qualitative data analysis, which also records that the week never reconciles them.
Three kinds of instruction, undistinguished
Read the fourth column of the table above. Five bubbles tell you to do something, four ask something of the data, and one does both — bubble 2 instructs you to note patterns and then asks whether they make sense. The figure sets all ten in identical bubbles, at identical weight.
The five that tell you to do something
- Group similar events, places and people together (1)
- Compare and contrast to establish similarities and differences between groups (3)
- Conduct simple counts by frequency of occurrence (4)
- Use a table or matrix to look at interrelationships (5)
- Build a logical chain of evidence from relationships in the data (8)
The four that ask something of the result
- Can deviations from the patterns be explained? (6)
- Do the findings suggest more data is needed? (7)
- What interesting stories emerge? (9)
- Do other studies agree, and if not, can that be explained? (10)
The split is worth noticing because the two halves do different work. The instructions produce something; the questions test what was produced. A reader who treats all ten as a to-do list will perform five operations and answer four questions in the same breath, which is not the same activity and does not belong at the same point in a project.
One way to arrange them — and the arrangement is this library's
The source states no order, so none is imposed here as though it were the source's. What follows is a grouping this library finds useful for working through the ten, offered as one arrangement among several that the figure would equally support. If you use it, say in your own write-up that the grouping is not the source's.
A working grouping (this library's, not the source's)
Operations on the data
Bubbles 1, 3, 4 and 5: group similar items, compare and contrast the groups, count by frequency, and lay interrelationships out in a table or matrix. These four produce something you can show.
Reading what the operations produced
Bubbles 2 and 8: note the patterns, themes and trends, ask whether they make sense, and build a logical chain of evidence from the relationships between them.
Testing the result
Bubbles 6, 7, 9 and 10: look for deviations and ask whether they can be explained, ask whether more data is needed, ask what stories emerge, and ask whether other studies agree.
Which of the ten the week picks up again
The section that follows the figure recaps the analysis a reader has supposedly done, and in doing so restates four of the ten bubbles almost word for word. That is the strongest evidence available that the figure is the substance of section six and that the section after it assumes you have worked through it.
THE FOUR BUBBLES RESTATED IN THE FOLLOWING SECTION
| Bubble | How the next section restates it |
|---|---|
| 4 — simple counts by frequency | Repeated word for word: “You may have conducted simple counts to see if patterns, themes and trends can be grouped according to frequency of occurrence.” |
| 3 — compare and contrast | Repeated word for word: “You have compared and contrasted the data to establish similarities and differences between the data groups”. |
| 5 — table or matrix | Restated as “and looked at interrelationships between different parts of the data” — dropping the instruction to use a table or matrix. |
| 8 — chain of evidence | Restated as “you have been able to build a logical chain of evidence” — dropping “by looking for relationships between the data”. |
Six bubbles — 1, 2, 6, 7, 9 and 10 — are never restated anywhere. The two restatements that are not word for word both drop the part that says how.
The matrix instruction that nothing in the material supports
Bubble 5 is the only instruction in the entire supplied teaching source to use a matrix in qualitative analysis. It is worth isolating, because of what happens when a reader tries to follow it.
Working the ten into your own project
Treated as prompts rather than steps, the ten are usable, and the four the week never restates are the most useful of them, because they are the only place the material asks you to be sceptical about your own analysis. The guidance below is this library's; the source gives none.
Using the ten without over-claiming them
- Record which of the ten you actually ran, and when. The source states no order, so your own order is a decision you should be able to describe.
- Do bubble 7 — “does more data need to be collected?” — while collection is still open. Asked after fieldwork closes, it has no answer you can act on.
- If you follow bubble 5 and build a matrix, keep it: no matrix appears anywhere in the supplied material, so yours has no model to copy and will need explaining to a reader.
- If you follow bubble 4 and count, report the counts. Frequencies are cheap to produce and the week's own example shows how conspicuous their absence is.
- Do not cite the ten as a published framework. They are ten bubbles in an unattributed image, and nothing supplied establishes where they came from.
What to carry forward
- The section headed “Finding meaning from your data” contains one image and no prose. The ten bubbles are the whole of it.
- There is no numbering, no arrow and no stated order, and the content is not order-neutral. Whether the ten are steps, options, prompts or checks is not stated.
- Five are instructions, four are questions and one is both. Any grouping on this page is this library's and is labelled as such.
- The four bubbles the following section repeats are all operations. The six it never repeats include every question that would test your findings.
- Bubble 5 is the only instruction anywhere in the supplied source to use a matrix, and no matrix appears anywhere in it.
Frequently asked questions
What order should the ten be worked through in?
The source states none. The figure has no numbering, no arrows and no connectors, and nothing in the surrounding material refers to it. Any order you adopt is yours, and it is worth saying so in your own write-up rather than presenting a sequence as though the source had prescribed one.
Why does this page reproduce a spelling mistake?
Bubble 6 reads “exolained” in the image itself, which means every capture of the notes carries it and it is not an extraction artefact. Silently correcting the text of an image would misrepresent what a reader of the source actually sees. The same word appears correctly spelled in bubble 10.
Are the ten steps or prompts?
The source does not say, and the ten are not all of one kind: five are instructions to do something, four are questions to ask of the data, and one is both. Treating them as prompts is safer than treating them as steps, because several of them cannot be performed in the figure's reading order.
Where did the figure come from?
It carries no attribution. The study notes as a whole are marked as sourced from a third-party study-skills resource, but nothing states whether the figure originates there. It should not be cited as a named framework, because nothing supplied establishes that it is one.
What is the matrix in bubble 5, and where is an example?
There is no example. Bubble 5 is the only instruction in the whole supplied teaching source to use a matrix; the week's glossary defines a matrix in six words as columns and intersecting lines showing relationships, and no matrix appears anywhere in the supplied material.
Do these ten replace a coding procedure?
No. They sit after grouping has begun and mostly address what to do with patterns once you have them. Coding and categorisation are treated separately in the same week, in three definitions that do not agree with one another.
References and source attribution
- Supplied teaching source, Week 12: Analysing qualitative data — study notes, section 6, “Finding meaning from your data”. The section consists of one image and no prose; all ten bubbles are reproduced here verbatim from it, including the misspelling in bubble 6.
- Supplied teaching source, Week 12 — study notes, section 7, “Writing up analysed data”, which restates four of the ten bubbles in prose, two of them word for word.
- Supplied teaching source, Week 12 — slide deck, slide 9 (the eleven-term glossary, source of the six-word definition of “Matrix”) and slide 24 (the discussion guideline that restates bubble 10).
- The study notes carry a blanket sourcing line to a third-party academic study-skills website archive. The figure itself bears no attribution, and none is asserted on this page.
- O'Leary, Z. 2017, The Essential Guide to Doing Your Research Project, 3rd ed., Sage Publications, London. Cited in the supplied source as the origin of the week's separate three-stage analysis diagram, which does not refer to this figure.
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- Give me the ten bubbles as a checklist I can keep beside my analysis.
- Which of the ten does the supplied material develop, and which does it drop?
- What would a matrix of my interview data actually look like, given the source shows none?
- How should I describe the order I worked through these in, if the source states no order?
- What is the difference between the instructions and the questions in this figure?