TOPIC 10

ACTION RESEARCH: DATA

ANALYSIS

QUALITATIVE DATA
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WHAT IS DATA ANALYSIS?

A complex process that involves moving back and

forth
between

concrete bits of data and abstract concepts

between inductive and deductive reasoning
between description and interpretation

Simply put: Data analysis is the process of making

meaning from the data

ANALYSING DATA IN TRADITIONAL

RESEARCH
Analysis of data occurs primarily at two points during
the process of a research study.
In traditional quantitative research studies, data
analysis typically occurs following the completion of
all data collection.
In traditional qualitative research studies, data
analysis typically begins during data collection,
continues throughout the remainder of the process of
collecting data, and is completed following data
collection.

ANALYSING DATA IN ACTION

RESEARCH
Action

research combines these two approaches.

Johnson (2008) suggests that as you collect your
data, analyze them by looking for themes,
categories, or patterns that emerge. This analysis
will influence further data collection [and
analysis] by helping you to know what to look for
(p. 63).
He continues by stating that there should also be
a final stage of data analysis once everything has
been collected.
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QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
Is used to describe behaviours, actions, feelings,
perceptions, and interaction among people
It assumes that respondents or people observed
have unique views of their personal experiences
or the surrounding environment.
Is used to help us understand lifestyles and
cultural values, actions, and symbols.

6 STEPS IN THE PROCESS OF

ANALYSING & INTERPRETING
QUALITATIVE DATA
(CRESSWELL, 2012, P236-263)

Prepare and Organise the data for analysis

Explore and Code the data
Coding to build Description and Themes
Represent and Report Qualitative Findings
Interpret the findings
Validate the Accuracy of the Findings

CATEGORIES OF DATA COLLECTION

Observation
Interviews and questionnaires
Documents
Audiovisual materials

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
What the participant did.
His or her appearance.
Body language and affect ( how they appeared to be
feeling).
The surrounding environment
Interaction among two or more research subjects.
Your own reactions to the interview or observation

DATA TO BE ANALYZED WILL

CONSIST OF:
Words recorded on tape or transcribed.
Your notes.
Documents or other pre-existing items.

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RICHARDSON (2000 AS CITED IN MONTCALM &

ROYSE, 2002) IDENTIFIES FOUR TYPES OF NOTES
YOU SHOULD KEEP ON YOUR RESEARCH.

Observational notes description of what you

saw, heard, and felt.
Methodological notes what decisions did you
make about doing the interview or observation
and analysing your data.
Theoretical notes your initial impressions or
hypotheses.
Personal notes statements reflecting what you
are thinking or feeling about your work.

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1. HOW TO PREPARE AND

ORGANISE THE DATA FOR
ANALYSIS?
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Organise data
Transcribe data
Analyse by hand or computer
- Use of Qualitative Computer Programmes

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ORGANISING DATA (CRESSWELL, 2012,

P238)

In QR, data collected is extensive; for eg. 30-min

interview will result in 20 pages of single-spaced
transcription
Develop a matrix or a table of resources that can be
used to help organise the data
Organise the material by type: all interviews/
observations/ documents/photographs/ other visual
materials; you might also consider organising the
materials by participant, site, location, or some
combinations of these approaches
Keeping duplicate copies of all forms of data

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TRANSCRIBING DATA
In QR, you collect data through interviewing or
writing fieldnotes during observations
You have to listen to the tapes & read the notes
to begin the process of data analysis.
As a general rule of thumb, it takes 4 hours to
transcribe 1 hour of tape.

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TRANSCRIBING DATA

Transcription is the process of converting

audiotape recordings or fieldnotes into text data.
All words, expressions and sounds (for e.g: pauses
([pause]) or [laughter], other noise [telephone
rings] or [inaudible]) during the interview need
to be transcribed in order to capture and provide all
the details of an interview.

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HINTS FOR TAPED INTERVIEWS

Use and external microphone
Use a telephone pick up device
Avoid possible loud noise interference
As interviewers induce slower, distinct speech
Use new high quality tapes or good well
maintained recording equipment
Think clearly about the format you want for your
printed transcription

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ANALYZE BY HAND OR COMPUTER

Hand analysis
Researchers

read the data, mark it by hand and

divide it into parts
Use color coding to mark the parts of the text
Cutting and pasting text sentences onto cards

Computer analysis
Researchers

use qualitative computer program to

facilitate the process of storing, analysing, sorting
and representing or visualizing the data

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2. HOW TO EXPLORE AND

CODE THE DATA?
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Explore the general sense

- Agar (1980) suggested thatyou read the
transcripts in their entirety several times.
Immerse yourself in the details, trying to get a
sense of the interview as a whole before breaking
it into parts
Code the data

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DEVELOPING DESCRIPTIONS & THEMES

FROM THE DATA
(CASE STUDY

APPROACH)

Coding data
Developing a description from the data
Defining themes from the data
Connecting and interrelating themes

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through data

Many
Pages
of Text

of information

Many
Segments
of Text

segments of
information
with codes

30-40
codes

redundancy
of codes

Codes
reduced
to 20

EducationalResearch2e:
Creswell

A VISUAL MODEL OF THE CODING

PROCESS IN QUALITATIVE
Divide text
Reduce
Label
Collapse
RESEARCH
Initially read
into segments
Overlap and

codes into
themes

Reduce Codes to
5-7 Themes

WHERE TO START BASIC OR FIRST

LEVEL CODING (ESTABLISHMENT
OF CATEGORIES)

Creation of data transcript. Organizing this transcript into

units of analysis easiest way is to do this question by
question in your interview guide (assumes that you have
asked all of most of the questions to each of the respondents).
Choose a unit of analysis in a written document or transcript.
This might be a whole interview, page, paragraph, sentence,
phrase, or word.
Across all respondents, count the number of times a
particular word, similar phrase or sentence occurs.*
Establish categories for similar phrases or thoughts.
Put together a frequency table to indicate how many times
this common element occurs or simply describe how many
times it occurred in your narrative
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CODING DATA

Open Coding
Assign

a code word or phrase that accurately describes

the meaning of the text segment
Line-by-line coding is done first in theoretical research
More general coding involving larger segments of text is
adequate for practical research (action research)

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AXIAL CODING
The process of looking for categories that cut across all
data sets
After this type of coding, you have identified your
themes
You cant classify something as a theme unless it cuts
across the preponderance of the data

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26

CATEGORISING

THE NEXT STEP IS MAKING COMPARISON ACROSS

CATEGORIES AND AMONG QUESTIONS (AXIAL OR
SECOND LEVEL CODING)

Are

there similarities among the

categories
Does one category precede another
Do two categories occur at the same time
in the same statement
Are there overlaps among the categories
Are there obvious patterns or themes
Can a hypothesis be generated about
cause and effect relationships (based on
these patterns).

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CLUSTERING
After open coding an entire text, make a list of all
code words
Cluster together similar codes and look for
redundant codes
Objective: reduce the long list of codes to a smaller,
more manageable number (25 or 30)

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PRELIMINARY ORGANIZING SCHEME

Take this new list of codes and go back to the data
Reduce this list to codes to get 5 to 7 themes or
descriptions
Themes are similar codes aggregated together to form a
major idea in the database
Identify the 5-7 themes by constantly comparing the data
(Constant Comparative Analysis)

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3. HOW DO YOU USE CODES

TO BUILD DESCRIPTION
AND THEMES?
30

DESCRIPTION
A detailed rendering of people, places, or events
in a setting in qualitative research
Codes such as seating arrangements, teaching
approach, or physical layout of the room, might
all be used to describe a classroom where
instruction takes place

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NARRATIVE DESCRIPTION
From the coding and the themes, construct a
narrative description and possibly a visual
display of the findings for your research report
Use the assigned format

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CONSTRUCTING THE NARRATIVE

Identify

dialogue that provides support for

themes
Look for dialogue in the participants own
dialect
Use metaphors and analogies
Collect quotes from interview data or
observations
Locate multiple perspectives & contrary
evidence
Look for vivid detail
Identify tensions and contradictions in
individual experiences

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EducationalResearch2e:
Creswell

Coding Used in a Descriptive

Passage

The Incident and Response

The incident occurred on the campus of a large public university in a
Midwestern city. A decade ago, this city had been designated an allAmerican city, but more recently, its normally tranquil environment
Description builds
has been disturbed by an increasing number of assaults and homicides.
from broad to narrow Some of these violent incidents have involved students at the
university.
Situate the reader
The incident that provoked this study occurred on a Monday in
in the place
October. A forty-three-year-old graduate student, enrolled in a seniorlevel actuarial science class, arrived a few minutes before class, armed
with a vintage Korean War military semiautomatic rifle loaded with a
Provide details
thirty-round clip of thirty caliber ammunition. He carried another thirtyround clip in his pocket. Twenty of the thirty-four students in the class
had already gathered for class, and most of them were quietly reading
the student newspaper. The instructor was en route to class.
The gunman pointed the rifle at the students, swept it across the
Detail to create a
room, and pulled the trigger. The gun jammed. Trying to unlock the
sense of being there
rifle, he hit the butt of it on the instructors desk and quickly tried firing
it again. Again it did not fire. By this time, most students realized what
was happening and dropped to the floor, overturned their desks, and
Use of action verbs
tried to hide behind them. After about twenty seconds, one of the
and vivid modifiers
students shoved a desk into the gunman, and students ran past him
and adjectives
out into the hall and out of the building. The gunman hastily departed
the room and went out of the building to his parked car, which he had
left

WHY THEMES?
It is best to write a qualitative report providing
detailed information about a few themes rather
than general information about many themes
Themes can also be referred to as Categories

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NAMING THE THEMES OR

CATEGORIES

The names can come from at least three sources:

The

researcher
The participants
The literature

Most common: when the researcher comes up with

terms, concepts, and categories that reflect what he
or she sees in the data

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THEMES SHOULD
Reflect the purpose of the research
Be exhaustive--you must place all data in a category
Be sensitizing--should be sensitive to what is in the
data

i.e.,

leadership vs. charismatic leadership

Be conceptually congruent--the same level of

abstraction should characterize all categories at the
same level
For

instance, you wouldnt have produce, canned goods,

and fruit

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TYPES OF THEMES
Ordinary:

themes a researcher expects

Unexpected: themes that are surprises and not
expected to surface
Hard-to-classify: themes that contain ideas that do
not easily fit into one theme or that overlap with
several themes
Major & minor themes: themes that represent the
major ideas, or minor, secondary ideas in a
database
Minor

themes fit under major themes in the write up38

EducationalResearch2e:
Creswell

Coding Used in Theme Passage

Safety
The violence in the city that involved university students and the
Title for theme
subsequent gun incident that occurred in a campus classroom shocked
based on words of
the typically tranquil campus. A counselor aptly summed up the
participant
feelings of many: When the students walked out of that classroom,
their world had become very chaotic; it had become very random,
something had happened that robbed them of their sense of safety.
Evidence for themes Concern for safety became a central reaction for many informants.
When the chief student affairs officer described the administrations
based on multiple
perspectives of
reaction to the incident, he listed the safety of students in the
participants
classroom as his primary goal, followed by the needs of the news
media for details about the case, helping all students with
Within themes
psychological stress, and providing public information on safety. As he
are sub-themes
talked about the safety issue and the presence of guns on campus, he
mentioned that a policy was under consideration for the storage of
guns used by students for hunting. Within 4 hours after the incident, a
press conference was called during which the press was briefed not
only on the details of the incident, but also on the need to ensure the
safety of the campus. Soon thereafter the university administration
initiated an informational campaign on campus safety. A letter,
describing the incident, was sent to the university board members.
(One board member asked, How could such an incident happen at
this university?)

4. HOW DO YOU
REPRESENT AND REPORT
FINDINGS?
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REPRESENTING FINDINGS
Create comparison table
Develop a hierarchical tree diagram
Present figures
Draw a map
Develop a demographic table

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REPORTING FINDINGS
Primary form a narrative discussion
Author summarizes in detail the findings from
their data analysis
No set form

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USEFUL HINTS
Include dialogues that provide support for
themes
State the dialogue in the participants native
language / regional or ethnic dialect
Use metaphors and analogies
Report quotes from interview data or from
observation of individuals
Report multiple perspectives and contrary
evidence
Write in vivid detail
Specify tensions and contradictions in individual
experiences

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5. HOW DO YOU INTERPRET

FINDINGS?
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INTERPRETATION
Means the researcher steps back and and forms
some larger meaning about the phenomenon
based on personal views, comparisons with past
studies, or both.
In other words, QR is an interpretive research
where you have to make sense of your findings.

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Summarize findings
Convey Personal Reflections
Make comparisons to the Literature
Offer Limitations & Suggestions for Future
Research

46

FUTURE RESEARCH SUGGESTED

Researchers make recommendations for
future research
In

addition, further research is needed to determine

outcomes for a diversified culture of students,
including, but not limited to African-American
students and students diagnosed with AD/HD.
Research is also needed to examine and validate
existing frameworks before professing any general
claims concerning the outcomes for students engaged
in service learning activities (Terry, 2003).
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6. HOW DO YOU VALIDATE

THE ACCURACY OF YOUR
FINDINGS?
48

RELIABILITY OR DEPENDABILITY
From a quantitative perspective, reliability
refers to the extent to which research findings
can be replicated
From a qualitative perspective, dependability,
(reliability) in qualitative research is not based
on outsiders getting the same results, but that
outsiders concur that, given the data collected,
the results make sense. In other words, the
results are dependable and consistent (Lincoln &
Guba, 1985).

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VALIDATING THE ACCURACY OF

FINDINGS

At the end, the qualitative researcher validates the

finding by determining the accuracy or credibility of
the findings. Methods include:
Prolonged

engagement & persistent observation in the field

Triangulation
Peer Review
Clarifying researcher bias
Member Checking
Rich, thick description
External Audit

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WE ENHANCE RELIABILITY OF OUR

DATA ANALYSIS BY:

Comparing our categories to pre-existing frameworks.

Having an additional person redo the analysis.
Comparing notes from more than one source.
Using more than one type of qualitative data in our
analysis (observation, interviews, document analysis).
Supplementing the qualitative analysis with
information from another quantitative source (for
example, a survey).
Keeping a record (audit) of how you established data
categories and identified themes.
Establishing a feedback loop so that participants can
verify whether or not the analysis is accurate enough to
reflect their views.
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FINALLY, SOME ADVICE

Try not to become overwhelmed at the anticipation of
analysing your data, especially if you have experienced
stress, frustration,and confusion.
The analysis of action research data is typically much
less complex and detailed than in other, more
formal research studies (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2003).
In addition,do not feel that it is a requirement for you
to analyse the data; you are certainly free to enlist the
help of other teachers, administrators, or data analysts
(Creswell, 2005).

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THANK YOU.
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TUTORIAL QUESTION
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REFER TO YOUR TUTORIAL 8

Problem / Issue:
Poor class control during group work
Task 1: What are your sources of information?
Task 2: What are your data collection tools?
Task 3: In small groups, design a questionnaire
that you plan to administer to teachers
regarding the issue.

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TUTORIAL 10

Based on the data collection method that you

have chosen, discuss the codes and themes that
you wish to use.

Here are some samples of AR. Discuss the data

analysis used by the respective researchers.
http://e-flt.nus.edu.sg/v4n12007/shen.pdf

http://iteslj.org/Articles/Snell-Interaction.html

http://dppd.ubbcluj.ro/adn/article_6_2_3.pdf
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