What Analysing Qualitative Data Involves
The supplied week characterises qualitative analysis with five stated orientations, one stated advantage and no stated disadvantage. This page sets out what the material actually claims, where those claims came from, and which of the terms it leans on it never explains.
One stated advantage, and no stated disadvantage
The deck opens its qualitative half with a single claim about why you would use these methods at all. It is the only statement of a benefit in the whole deck, and nothing in those slides states a corresponding cost.
Both halves of that sentence are usable. Depth from the participant's perspective is what you are buying when you choose an interview over a rating scale; multiple contexts is why a single case can still be informative, because the same statement means different things in a team under schedule pressure and in one that is not.
Holistic and context sensitive: the two properties that constrain your handling of data
Of the five orientations the deck lists, three describe a stance and two describe a constraint. The two that constrain are worth separating out, because each rules something out about what you may do with your data once you have it.
Holistic perspective
- The phenomenon is "a complex system that is more than the sum of its parts".
- The focus is on "complex interdependencies and system dynamics".
- Rules out: reduction "in a meaningful way to a few discrete variables and linear, cause and effect relationships".
- Consequence: a scheme that dissolves a project into six independent factors reported separately has abandoned the property the source calls definitional.
Context sensitive
- Analysis "places findings in a social, historical, and temporal context".
- It is "careful about the possibility or meaningfulness of generalisations across time and space".
- Offers instead "extrapolating patterns for possible transferability and adaptation in new settings".
- Consequence: the context of each statement is part of the data, not background, and has to survive into the write-up.
The other three orientations, quoted in full
The five orientations are split across two slides with different titles, two on the first and three on the second. The source does not number them, does not say they are a set, and does not state how many there are. The count of five below is arrived at by enumeration here, not stated by the material.
THE FIVE ANALYTIC ORIENTATIONS, AS THE DECK STATES THEM
| Orientation | The definition, verbatim | What the source does with it |
|---|---|---|
| Unique case orientation | "assumes that each case is unique; the first level of analysis is respecting and capturing the details of the individual cases being studied; cross-case analysis follows depends on the quality of individual case studies." | The final clause is broken - two verbs, no conjunction - and is reproduced as printed. |
| Inductive analysis | "engagement in the details and specifics of the data to discover important patterns, themes, and inter-relationships; begins by exploring, then confirming findings, guided by analytical principles rather than rules." | No analytical principle is named anywhere. |
| Holistic perspective | "the whole phenomenon under study is understood as a complex system that is more than the sum of its parts; the focus is on complex interdependencies and system dynamics that cannot be reduced in a meaningful way to a few discrete variables and linear, cause and effect relationships" | No method for keeping a holistic view while coding is given. |
| Context sensitive | "places findings in a social, historical, and temporal context; careful about the possibility or meaningfulness of generalisations across time and space; emphasises instead careful comparative case analyses and extrapolating patterns for possible transferability and adaptation in new settings" | Contradicted in the discussion half of the same deck. |
| Voice, perspective, and reflexivity | "focus reflects a balance between understanding and depicting the world authentically and of being self-analytical, politically aware, and reflexive in consciousness" | Reflexivity is developed in the earlier qualitative-research week; neither week refers to the other. |
Source: the week's slide deck, slides 4 and 5. The words are the source's; the grouping into one table is this page's. The source states no count.
Read together, the five say what qualitative analysis is like. None says what to do on Monday morning: nothing tells you how to respect a unique case while building a code list, how to hold a holistic view while dividing a transcript into segments, or what being reflexive requires in practice. For the developed treatment of the last of these use Reflexivity and the Researcher's Position; this week restates it as a single line and drops it.
What the study notes say qualitative data is
The slides characterise the analysis. The study notes open by characterising the data, and do it by contrast: they say what qualitative data is not before they say what it is.
The positive half of that definition is short but usable as a test. If the record you are building does not capture attitude, feeling or behaviour in greater depth than a count would, you have collected qualitative-looking data and are about to do quantitative work on it. The third bullet is the operational one: attention to individual cases, the same commitment the deck makes under unique case orientation.
Where the data comes from: five methods, one sentence each
Before it treats analysis, the notes list five ways of gathering qualitative data, one sentence each. The list matters for a reason outside its own week: the data-collection week named focus groups and observations in its stated objective and taught neither, and these two sentences are the only definitions of either in the supplied material.
THE FIVE GATHERING METHODS, AS THE NOTES DEFINE THEM
| Method | The definition, in the source's words | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Questionnaires / Surveys | "a series of questions and other prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondents" | Listed as qualitative; the definition is silent on what would make it so |
| Interviews | "a conversation between two or more people (the interviewer and the interviewee) where questions are asked by the interviewer to obtain information" | Consistent with the data-collection week |
| Focus Groups | "a group of people are asked about their attitude towards a product, service, concept, advertisement, idea, or packaging" | The only definition in the supplied material. One sentence; not a method description |
| Observation | "a group or single participants are manipulated by the researcher, for example, asked to perform a specific task or action" | The only definition in the supplied material, and it describes an experiment |
| Discourse Analysis | "a general term for a number of approaches" to written, spoken or signed language use | A name and a category. The approaches are never listed; the term never returns |
Source: the week's study notes, section 1. The count of five is derived by enumeration; the source states no count.
Why do it: a heading that asks why and a list that answers what
The notes' second section is headed "Why do qualitative data analysis". It answers with six items, and five of them describe what the analysis does rather than why you would do it.
- "Looks further than precise numerical evidence"
- "Looks for categories such as events, descriptions, comments, behaviour"
- "An inductive process - developing theories from the data you have gathered"
- "Coding of categories and sub-categories identified"
- "Compares codes, looking for consistencies, differences, patterns etc"
- "Looks for new and emerging categories."
Only the first can be read as a reason. The rest are activities, in roughly the order the notes' later sections develop them: identify categories, code, compare, watch for new ones. That makes the list the nearest thing the notes have to a procedure, which it is not - nothing is numbered and nothing is a step. It is one of five separate accounts of the analysis process the week contains, none reconciled with any other; all five are set out on The Steps in Qualitative Data Analysis.
Working with this material on a real project
What you can take from this week directly
- A test for your data: does the record capture attitude, feeling or behaviour in greater depth than a count would? If not, you are doing quantitative work.
- A constraint on analysis: do not reduce the phenomenon to a few discrete variables and linear causes. The source treats this as definitional.
- A constraint on claims: place findings in their social, historical and temporal context, and treat portability as transferability requiring adaptation.
- A commitment to individual cases: notes and slides agree the individual case comes first and cross-case work second.
- A warning for the write-up: the depth you gain is depth from the participant's perspective, a stated position rather than a neutral one.
Where this page sits against the week's own objectives
The week states two objectives, under a lead-in reading "At the end of this topics you will" - reproduced as printed. The first is "Evaluate presentation styles for qualitative data". Not one presentation style for qualitative data is named anywhere in the week: no quotation convention, no thematic narrative, no case description, no matrix display, no frequency table. The verb is undelivered too: evaluation requires criteria and a comparison, and the week compares nothing with anything.
Across the six weeks of the subject now on record, fourteen learning objectives are stated, none is fully delivered, four are partially delivered and ten are not delivered at all. The reconciled audit is on The Six-Week Objective Audit and the consolidated view is on What This Material Does Not Teach.
What to carry forward
- Five orientations, stated as properties and never as instructions. Holistic perspective rules out reduction to a few variables and linear causes; context sensitivity rules out portability without adaptation.
- The deck warns against generalisation in its first half and requires you to discuss generalisability in its second. Both are the source's; neither is preferred here.
- One advantage stated, no disadvantage stated anywhere - including under the heading that promises both.
- Grounded theory, "discrete variables" and "theme" all carry weight here and none is defined. Do not cite this material for any of them.
- The study notes are a third-party tutorial copied into the subject, written for a different sequence and originally interactive. That explains the misfits; it does not fix them.
Frequently asked questions
Does this material tell me how to analyse qualitative data, or only what qualitative analysis is like?
Mostly the latter, in the sections this page covers. The five orientations are properties, not procedures, and the six-item list under "Why do qualitative data analysis" is a set of activities presented as reasons. The week does contain process material - a four-step model, a three-stage diagram and a nine-item exercise - but they are separate accounts that the source never reconciles, and they are treated on the steps page.
Can I cite this week for a grounded theory methodology?
No. Grounded theory is named once, in the first bullet of the first section, with a parenthesis where a hyperlink used to be, and it is explained nowhere in the week's notes or slides. If your design is grounded-theory based, take the definition and the procedure from a methods text and cite that text.
Should I claim my qualitative findings generalise?
The material gives you two incompatible answers. Its analysis half says qualitative work is careful about the meaningfulness of generalisation across time and space and offers transferability with adaptation instead; its discussion half instructs you to discuss the generalisability of your results using population, inclusion and exclusion criteria and follow-up rate. Pick a position, state it, and cite something other than this material for it.
Why does the observation definition sound like an experiment?
Because as written it describes one: participants are "manipulated by the researcher", which is the defining feature of an experiment rather than of observation. The definition is reproduced here rather than repaired, because it is the only definition of observation in the supplied material and repairing it would misrepresent what the source says. Use a cited text if observation is in your design.
Is a questionnaire a qualitative method?
The notes list questionnaires and surveys first among five ways of gathering qualitative data, and then define them in terms that say nothing about what would make them qualitative - "a series of questions and other prompts". The nearest the supplied material comes to the distinction is its treatment of structured and unstructured questions in the data-collection week. Open-ended items are what make the difference in practice, and the source does not say so.
How much of this week's content is original to the subject?
Less than the filenames suggest. The study notes are copied in full from a third-party academic study-skills website and were written for a different sequence, and several of the deck's most substantial items - a stage diagram, the worked categorisation and the ethics slide - are reproductions from texts that are not supplied. Treat every gap you meet here as a gap in the supplied material rather than proof that the subject as taught omitted it.
References and source attribution
- O'Leary, Z 2010, Doing your research project, Sage Publications - the reference the week's own slides give, and the source of the stage diagram treated on the steps page.
- O'Leary, Z. 2017, The Essential Guide to Doing Your Research Project, 3rd ed., Sage Publications, London - the later edition cited elsewhere in the supplied source; a place to obtain the grounded theory and observation definitions this week does not supply.
- Bryman, A. 2016, Social Research Methods, 5th ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford - cited elsewhere in the supplied source.
- Quinlan, C. 2011, Business Research Methods, 1st ed., Cengage Publishing.
- The supplied teaching source: the qualitative analysis week's study notes, sections 1 and 2, and its slide deck, slides 3 to 5. The study notes are themselves a capture of a third-party academic study-skills website and carry that sourcing line under their first heading.
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- Which parts of my qualitative design can I cite this teaching material for, and which need an outside text?
- Draft a paragraph for my methodology chapter that states a holistic, context-sensitive position without over-claiming.
- How should I word a limitations section when the teaching material states no limitations of qualitative analysis?
- Give me a defensible position on transferability versus generalisability for a single-organisation project study.
- What is the difference between the qualitative-research week's definitions and this week's restatement of them?