QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS

A/Professor Denis McLaughlin

School of Educational Leadership

QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS

You have a book of readings with relevant extracts from the following books.
1. 2. They must be read Dey, I (1993) Qualitative data analysis, London: Routledge Miles, M & Huberman, A (1984). Qualitative data analysis, Newbury park: Sage Miles, M & Huberman, A (1994). Qualitative data analysis : An expanded source book (2nd edition), Thousand Oakes: Sage Coffey, A. & Atkinson, P.(1996).Making sense of qualitative data, Thousand Oaes: Sage Marshall, C. & Rossman, G. (1989).Designing qualitative research. Newbury Park: Sage Tesch, R. (1990). Qualitative research, New York: Falmer Press Creswell, J. (1998). Qualitative inquiry and research design, Thousand Oaks: Sage Creswell, J. (2002). Analyzing and interpreting qualitative data (pp256283). In J Creswell, Educational research, Thousand Oaks: Sage Maykut, P. & Morehouse, R. (1994) Qualitative data analysis: using the constant comparative method , In P. Maykut & R. Morehouse, Beginning qualitative research, London Falmer Press

3.
4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

RESEARCH STRATEGY IDENTIFICATION

RESEARCH PROBLEM

RESEARCH PURPOSE RESEARCH QUESTIONS

ISSUES TO BE EXPLORED

APPROPRIATE TECHNIQUES

OVERVIEW OF QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS

Data Collection

Data display

Data reduction

Conclusions: drawing / verifying

(Miles & Huberman, 1984; 1994)

INTERACTIVE PROCESS OF DATA ANALYSIS

Data collection
Data display Reflection on Data ITERATIVE SIMULTANEOUS Data Coding Data distillation (reduction

Generation of Themes
Story interpretation Research Conclusions

QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS (Dey, 1993)

describing

Connecting

Classifying

Qualitative analysis as an iterative spiral

Dey, 1993

DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURES

In this section of your Design chapter mention the following characteristics of the process Data analysis is an eclectic process (Tesch,1990) 1. Occurs simultaneously and iterative with data collection, data interpretation and report writing (Creswell, 2002; Miles & Huberman, 1984) 2. Is based on the on data reduction and interpretation -decontextualisation & recontextualisation (Marshall & Rossman, 1989; Tesch, 1990)

2. Data Analysis Procedures

3. Represents information in matrices-displays of
information , spatial format that presents information systematically to reader
3. (Miles and Huberman, 1984) A I page example of this must be placed in this chapter eventually Display categories by informants, sites and other Tables of tabular information showing relationships among categories of information

4. Identifies the coding procedure to be used to reduce information to themes / categories (Read Tesch, 1990, pp142-145).

Categorisation and Themes

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Constant comparative content analysis Themes generated from the literature review Themes embedded in instrument questions Themes embedded in research questions Combination of any of above

DATA ORGANISATION

(Miles & Huberman, 1994)

DEVELOP MATRICES : VISUAL IMAGES OF INFORMATION Comparison tables themes, participants, sites Heirarchical trees visually representing themes & their relations Figures in boxes to indicate the processes, time sequence, evolution of themes Organising the data by type interviews, observations, documents Organising by participants or sites combinations
See Michael Dredges Power point at the end of this sequence on this issue

DATA ANALYSIS
MANUAL
LESS THAN 500 PAGES OF TRANSCRIPTS OR FIELD NOTES WANT TO FEEL CLOSE TO DATA CANNOT AFFORD TO HAVE ALL INTERVIEWS TRANSCRIBED (4 HRS TO TRANSCRIBE 1 HR TAPE INTERVIEW)

COMPUTER
MORE THAN 500 PAGES OF DATA CAN AFFORD PROGRAM AND TRANSCRIBER ATLAS.ti QSR N5 (NUD8IST 5.0) NVivo Ethnograph WinMAX HyperResearch

CODING DATA (see Tesch, pp142 -145)

1. Get sense of whole: read all carefully 2. Pick one document what is its underlying meaning write thoughts themes in margin 3. Do this for several informants; Cluster together similar topics; arrange topics into major topics, unique topics, left overs 4. Revisit data with topics; Abbreviate the topics as codes; Re-analyse. Do new codes emerge? 5. Turn topics into themes 6. Reduce number of themes by grouping similar themes 7. Diagrammatize the basics of the numbers 5 & 6 8. Finalise abbreviations- alphabetise codes 9. Perform preliminary analysis on material belonging to each theme 10. If necessary, recode existing data

Always include in your design chapter a page of text (exhibit 4.x) illustrating the how you code the text

CODING PROCESS
(Matrix example)

(Creswell, 2002)

Read text data

Divide text into segments of information

Code segments

Reduce Codes

Collapse codes into themes

Many pages of texts

Many segments of texts

30 40 codes

Codes reduced to 20

Codes reduced to 5 -7 themes

Description of Data Analysis

(Matrix example)

In your analysis chapter you would present a diagram such as this at the beginning but with actual contextual material to illustrate the flow of your analysis. You would flag this overview in your Design chapter and refer specifically to it Stage 1 Data collection, display reflection Initial data analysis Stage 2 Data coding & distillation

Major and minor topics

Theme 2 Theme 3 Theme 4

Stage 3 Generation of key themes Stage 4 Story report & conclusions

Theme 1

Final interpretation

Data Collection
Techniques Exploratory Phase

Stages for Data Collection (Matrix example)

Step 1a: Initial Exploratory Survey Conducted in 1998 1st Visit to PNG; Meet various stakeholders SSSP graduates, personnel from tertiary institutions, NDOE, parents etc Analyze responses for trends and patterns Select stratified sample from step 1 according to predetermined criteria for individual interviews recipients in employment recipients at universities recipients at vocational institutions Interview selected sample Focus groups at universities and colleges Analyse data collected in step 3 and 4 Interview selected officials, personnel from tertiary institutions, employers, parents & guardians Analyse official interviews Analyse interviews of secondary sources Document analysis

Step 1b: Step 2:

Individual In-depth Interviews Focus Groups

Step 3: Step 4: Step 5: Step 6:

Documentary

& Final analysis

Step 7: Step 8: Step 9:

Step 10

Final analysis