Points to remember
The following are the major points introduced in this chapter. Ensure that you are very confident with their meaning, content, context and significance.
1
Quantitative and qualitative research employ different types of data analysis.
2
For a number of qualitative researchers, analysis is a cyclical, not a linear,
process.
3
For a number of qualitative researchers, data analysis takes place during and/or
after data collection.
4
Overall, data analysis in qualitative research is not as rigid and uniform as it
is in quantitative research.
5
In qualitative interviews one possible way of data analysis entails
transcription, checking and editing, analysis and interpretation,
generalisations and verifications.
6
In case-study research, data analysis can be accomplished by one or more of the
following methods: pattern-matching, explanation-building techniques,
time-series analysis, making repeated observations and secondary analysis.
7
According to one view of qualitative research, interpretation includes the
following tactics: noting patterns or themes, seeing plausibility, clustering,
making metaphors, counting, making contrasts/comparisons, partitioning
variables, subsuming particulars into general, factoring, noting relationships
between variables, finding intervening variables, building a logical chain of
evidence and making conceptual and theoretical coherence.
8
Many qualitative researchers do not employ mathematical/statistical methods in
data analysis; others do.
9
Grounded theory is one of the central methods of qualitative analysis, which has
been adopted by researchers of several schools of thought.
10
Analytic induction is a powerful tool of qualitative analysis that combines
elements of a variety of research contexts.
11
Construction and deconstruction is a dynamic model of qualitative analysis,
which entails processes found also in other qualitative models of analysis.
12
Analysis of data produced by narrative interviews focuses on 'a reconstruction
of the orientation patterns of action'.
13 The
two most important characteristics (and advantages) of narrative interviews are
the retrospective interpretation and the closeness of detailed stories to
reality.
14
Qualitative researchers extensively employ computers in data analysis. Several
computer programs have been developed to aid with qualitative data analysis.