Qualitative Data Analysis
Quantitative research
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Involves information or data in the form of
numbers
Allows us to measure or to quantify things
Respondents don’t necessarily give numbers
as answers - answers are analysed as
numbers
Good example of quantitative research is the
survey
Quantitative research
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Helps us flesh out the story and develop a
deeper understanding of a topic
Often contrasted to quantitative research
Together they give us the ‘bigger picture’
Good examples of qualitative research are
face-to-face interviews, focus groups and
site visits
Surveys: Questionnaires
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Think clearly about questions (need to
constrain answers as much as possible)
Make sure results will answer your research
question
Can use Internet for conducting surveys if
need to cover wide geographic reach
Face-to-face interviews
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Must prepare questions
Good idea to record your interviews
Interviews take up time, so plan for an hour
or less (roughly 10 questions)
Stick to your questions, but be flexible if
relevant or interesting issues arise during
the interview
Focus groups
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Take time to arrange, so prepare in advance
(use an intermediary to help you if you can)
Who will be in your focus group? (e.g. age,
gender)
Size of focus group (8-10 is typical)
Consider whether or not to have separate
focus groups for different ages or genders
(e.g. discussing sex and sexuality)
Site visits and observation
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Site visits involve visiting an organization,
community project etc
Consider using a guide
Observation is when you visit a location and
observe what is going on, drawing your own
conclusions
Both facilitate making your research more
relevant and concrete
Case studies
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Method of capturing and presenting
concrete details of real or fictional
situations in a structured way
Good for comparative analysis
Participatory research
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Allows participation of community being
researched in research process (e.g.
developing research question; choosing
methodology; analysing results)
Good way to ensure research does not
simply reinforce prejudices and
presumptions of researcher
Good for raising awareness in community
and developing appropriate action plans
Interviews
Interviews
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Unstructured
Semi-structured
Structured
Interviews
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Establish a rapport
Treat interviewees with respect
Think about your appearance
Think about body language
Maintain firm eye contact
Don’t Invade their space
Interviews

How are you going to record
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Tape recorder
Pen and paper
Video recorder
Questionnaires
Questionnaires
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Open-ended
Close-ended
Combination of both
Questionnaires
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Open-ended
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Slower to administer
Harder to record responses
Does not stifle response
Answerer can raise new issues
Answerer feels they can speak their mind
What does a blank answer mean ????
Questionnaires
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Close-ended
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Faster to administer
Easier to record responses
Answerer can only give predefined answers
Answerer cannot raise new issues
Answerer feels constrained
More likely to answer all questions (box tick)
Questionnaires
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Self-administered
Interviewer administered
Questionnaires
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Keep questions short and simple
Avoid questions with “not”
Avoid questions with bias
Avoid sensitive questions (ask
indirectly)
Types of Input
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Analysing data from;
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Interviews
Open-ended questions
Also (approaches you have seen
previously);
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Laddering
Card sorting
Repertory grids
Action Research & Participatory
Action Research
Action Research versus
Participatory Action Research
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"If you want to know how things
really are, just try to change them"
Action Research versus
Participatory Action Research
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Difference Or Extension?
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Context – Developing world issues V’s
Developed world issues?
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What do you need?
Mind Map
Conversational Analysis
Introduction

Conversation analysis (commonly
abbreviated as CA) is the study of talk in
interaction. CA generally attempts to
describe the orderliness, structure and
sequential patterns of interaction, whether
this is institutional (in the school, doctor's
surgery, courts or elsewhere) or casual
conversation.
MindMap
People
Harvey Sacks
Emanuel Schegloff
Conversational Analysis
Fields
Practical Examples
Ethnomethodology
Discursive Psychology
Qualitative Research
Conversations between friends
Relationship counselling sessions
Legal hearings
Ethnography
Ethnography
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“Do you mind if I just hang around
here and take note of what you’re
doing?”
Ethnography - background
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What is Anthropology?
It is the comparative study of the
physical and social characteristics of
humanity through the examination of
historical and present geographical
distribution, cultural history,
acculturation, and cultural
relationships.
Ethnography - background
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What is Cultural Anthropology?
It is one of four fields of anthropology
which has developed and promoted
"culture" as a meaningful scientific
concept; it is also the branch of
anthropology that studies cultural
variation among humans.
Ethnography
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It is two things
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The fundamental research method of
cultural anthropology.
It is the genre of writing that presents
descriptions of human social phenomena,
based on fieldwork; or, the written text
produced to report ethnographic research
results.
Ethnography
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Whilst living among the people,
ethnographers engage in participant
observation.
This means that they participate, as much
as possible, in local daily life (everything
from important ceremonies and rituals to
ordinary things like meal preparation and
consumption) while also carefully observing
everything they can about it.
Ethnography
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Through this, ethnographers seek to
gain what is called an emic
perspective, or the native's point(s)
of view without imposing their own
conceptual frameworks.
The emic perspective is quite different
from the etic perspective which is the
outsider's view on local life.
Ethnography
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Through the participant observation
method, ethnographers record detailed
fieldnotes, conduct interviews based
on open-ended questions, and gather
whatever site documents might be
available in the setting as data.
This data is then recorded in the
database.
Ethnomethodology
Ethnomethodology
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“The study of how people use
commonsense understandings to get
through everyday life ”
These understandings shape our
assumptions about social Interactions
In a conversation between two people
there are many things that are
understood than are actually
mentioned.
Ethnomethodology
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What are social problems?
Damaging conditions resulting in harm
to people or society.
Things are seen, judged, and defined
to be problems, i.e. What people
THINK they are.
Ethnomethodology
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Tacit interpretation – culture, teaching,
understanding, experiences.
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Explicit Truth – misinterpretations,
misunderstanding.
Ethnomethodology
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Example: Girl called Anna, unplanned
pregnancy, 21 years old, still in school.
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Good or Bad?
Ethnomethodology
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What if …….?
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Anna is an outstanding student, is the
sole heiress to a multi-billion dollar
business, has the full support of her
parents, and will be finished school
early into the pregnancy?
Ethnomethodology
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Anna Anisimova
Daughter of
Russian metals
magnate Vassily
Anisimov
Worth $1.3 billion
Ethnomethodology
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We make assumptions based on our tacit
interpretation of the world around us.
We can apply methods to research in order
to apply a “neutral” analysis to the subject.
This has been done in HCI to study
descriptions of how the users interact with
systems, rather than what the system
needed to do?
Ethnomethodology –
(Varieties)
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1. The organization of practical actions and practical
reasoning. Including
2. The organization of conversation analysis.
3. Talk-in-interaction within institutional or organizational
settings. Identify interactional structures that are specific to
particular settings.
4. The study of social activity. The analytic interest is in how
that work is accomplished within the setting in which it is
performed.
5. The haecceity of work. Just what makes an activity what it
is? E.g. what makes a test a test, a competition a competition,
or a definition a definition?
MindMap
Grounded Theory
What is Grounded theory?

"Grounded theory methods are a set of
flexible analytic guidelines that enable
researchers to focus their data
collection and to build inductive
middle-range theories through
successive levels of data analysis and
conceptual development" Charmaz, K.
(2005)
What is Grounded theory?

The phrase "grounded theory" refers to
theory that is developed inductively from a
corpus of data. If done well, this means that
the resulting theory at least fits one dataset
perfectly. This contrasts with theory derived
deductively from grand theory, without the
help of data, and which could therefore turn
out to fit no data at all - Steve Borgatti
Grounded Theory
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Emphasis on empirical material as basis for
conceptualization.
Gathering reach empirical material from a variety of
sources.
Open data collection
Recording data systematically
the emphasis is on exploring the nuances of the
data by constantly asking, 'of what is this an
example?'
Develop dense and grouded concepts and
categories
Example - Data Analysis
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Identify ‘critical instances’ -highlight key passages
of transcripts.
‘Open coding’ - assign passages to categories (i.e.
abstract conceptual labels). Work through all
transcripts and collect numerous illustrative quotes
to ‘saturate’ categories.
‘Axial coding’ - refine initial list of categories.
Delete and amalgamate some. Make connections
between the categories and define their properties
e.g. context, pre-conditions. These are subcategories.
‘Selective coding’ - identify a core category and
themes from which theory will derive.
Research Design
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1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Five components of research design:
A study's questions
Its propositions, if any
Its unit(s) of analysis
The logic linking the data to the propositions
The criteria for interpreting the findings
Strengths and Weaknesses
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Suitable for diagrammatic representation?
Complex terminology.
Time-consuming, requires concentration but can
adapt a ‘quick-and-dirty’ version.
Reductionist - complexity of raw data overcome by
reducing it to the status of variables.
Does not lead to any surprising findings. Theory is
inductively built up from data collected so cannot
contain anything new. Uncovers a pre-existing reality
similar to positivism / realism.
Idea that there is a ‘core’ category which explains all.
Issues of generalisation
Narrative Inquiry
Narrative Inquiry
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A narrative is the description of a sequence
of events – a story. It is generally natural for
people to remember things as a sequence
of events, and to provide a cause.
It can be used as a method of investigation
as follows:
While interviewing a person with relevant
information, let the interviewee provide their
information as a narrative – a story. Then
analyse the story using the components of a
story – such as a movie screenplay-–
identify the scenario -,setting, complicating
action, resolution
Narrative Inquiry
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The resulting analysis moves towards
a reduction of the narration to answer
the question "what is the point of this
story?" – and how does this fit into the
context of the research. (Richmond,
2002)
Narrative Inquiry
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An advantage of narrative is that it provides
the information along with its context – it
provides a more detailed answer to a
question.
Narrative Inquiry
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A narrative may be more effective than
questionnaires. Using a questionnaire
means that the investigator has
predetermined the nature of what they
expect to find before starting the enquiry
process. Questionnaires constrain an
interviewee – narrative allows them to
express the story as they see it. (Snowden,
2003)
Narrative Inquiry
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On the other hand ,there are dangers
in relying on narrative. By assigning
causes and connection events , people
make sense of the world . The cause
and connection may not be correct.
Phenomenography
JA, ich liebe
Logical
Investigations
1900
Martin
Heidegger
Jean-Paul Sartre
Edmund Husserl
Appearance
+
Description
=
Phenomenography
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Da Fan Club
Graphei
n
Phainomenon
Plato or Bust
Ulrich Sonnemann
In other words…
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Phenomenography, a descriptive
recording of immediate subjective
experience as reported, for example,
by a person under psychiatric
examination, without questioning the
share in such a communication of the
ego. (Sonnemann, 1954 )
What's it all About?
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Empirical research Based on
observation and experience
Applied factors – Intelligence,
Motivation, Effort, past and present
surroundings, experiences,
experiences and individual character
traits
Nothing taken for granted?
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What does it mean, that some people
are better at learning than others?
Why are some people better at
learning than others?
Content Analysis
Content Analysis

Content analysis is a standard
methodology in the social sciences on
the subject of communication content.
Earl Babbie defines it as "the study of
recorded human communications,
such as books, web sites, paintings
and laws".
Content Analysis

Harold Lasswell formulated the core
questions of content analysis: "Who
says what, to whom, why, to what
extent and with what effect?". Ole
Holsti (1969) offers a broad definition
of content analysis as "any technique
for making inferences by objectively
and systematically identifying specified
characteristics of messages"
Content Analysis
Q Methodology
Q Methodology
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The name "Q" comes from the form of factor
analysis that is used to analyze the data. Normal
factor analysis, called "R method," involves finding
correlations between variables (say, height and age)
across a sample of subjects. Q, on the other hand,
looks for correlations between subjects across a
sample of variables. Q factor analysis reduces the
many individual viewpoints of the subjects down to a
few "factors," which represent shared ways of
thinking.
Knowledge Elicitation
Card Sorting
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KA technique in which a collection of
concepts (or other knowledge objects) are
written on separate cards and sorted into
piles by an expert in order to elicit classes
based on attributes.
Also enables significant elicitation of
properties and dimensions
Used to capture concept knowledge and tacit
knowledge
Use in conjunction with triadic method
Can also sort objects or pictures instead of
cards
Repertory Grid technique
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KA technique used for a number of
purposes:
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to elicit attributes for a set of concepts
to rate concepts against attributes using a
numerical scale
uses statistical analysis to arrange and group
similar concepts and attributes
A useful way of capturing concept
knowledge and tacit knowledge
Requires special software (PC-PACK)
Repertory Grid
Example
Laddering
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KA technique that involves the construction,
modification and validation of trees.
A valuable method for acquiring concept
knowledge and, to a lesser extent, process
knowledge.
Can make use of various trees:
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concept tree
composition tree
attribute tree
process tree
decision tree
cause tree
Triadic Elicitation Method
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KA technique used to capture the way
in which an expert views the concepts
in a domain.
Involves presenting three random
concepts and asking in what way two
of them are similar but different from
the other one.
Answer will give an attribute.
A good way of acquiring tacit
knowledge.
Analysing Text
Analysing Text
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Faced with the lack of organisation of data
and the sheer amount of rambling can be
somewhat overwhelming
With the best will in the world about trying to
avoid bias, when there is multiple
interpretations of data, selecting the one that
best matches your research question
becomes very tempting.
Simple Tabulation
Subject
Money
Fame
Power
Social
Fulfilment
Other
1
15
6
4
0
1
38
2
5
3
6
5
4
27
3
1
0
3
12
21
46
…..
Total
Reasons for Choosing a career
Choosing categories
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Use ones from the literature
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Blame someone else / comparison
Use categories connected with your
research question
Derive categories from data
Deriving Categories
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Verbatim Analysis
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Gist Analysis
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Knowledge management <> Knowledge engineering <>
Knowledge representation <> Knowledge reasoning
“Compatible with Windows” <> “Windows-Compatible”
“Compatible with Windows” == “Windows-Compatible”
Superordinate Analysis
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Derive superclasses
Windows-Compatible + Linux-Compatible => category of
“Compatibility”
Knowledge Representation
Knowledge Representation
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Scripts
Sets
Schemata
Knowledge Representation
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Script Theory
Knowledge Representation
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Script Theory
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Schank states that memory is in the form of meaningful
'stories' (not merely inert decontextualized information)
and that problem solving progressed by using 'cases' or
examples stored in memory.
So for example, in the 'classical' view, when we walk to
the store, we accomplish this because we have access to
a stored algorithm that tells us 'step one, open door, step
two, step into street' and so on.
In Schank's view on the other hand, we accomplish this
because we have access to a stored 'schema' based on
previous experience of what it is like to walk to the store,
and we don't need rules to describe this.
Knowledge Representation
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Set Theory
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Do we categorise based on similarities or
differences ?
Category – Bird
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Robin  obvious
Ostriches and penguins  less features
Knowledge Representation
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Schema Theory

Bartlett arrived at the concept from studies of
memory he conducted in which subjects recalled
details of stories that were not actually there. He
suggested that memory takes the form of
schema which provide a mental framework for
understanding and remembering information.