Qualitative Research Methods & Data Analysis

About

Qualitative Research Methods and Data Analysis presents strategies for analyzing and making sense of qualitative data. The course will discuss the qualitative inquiry continuum—from descriptive to interpretive—and present established qualitative research approaches such as grounded theory, narrative analysis, and case studies. The course will briefly cover research design, including discussion of design dimensions: time, comparison, and use of theory. We will briefly cover data collection strategies—primarily interviews and focus groups—but the course will largely focus on data analysis. In particular, we will consider how researchers develop codes and integrate memo writing and diagrams into a larger analytic process. Coding and memo writing are concurrent tasks that occur during an active review of interviews, documents, focus groups, and/or online data.

Analytic memo writing is a strategy for capturing analytical thinking, inscribed meaning, and cumulative evidence for condensed meanings. Memos can also resemble early writing for reports, articles, chapters, and other forms of presentation. Researchers can also mine memos for codes and use memos to build evocative themes and theory. Coding provides an analytic focus and investigative point of view; the course will illustrate specific coding practices that generate particular types of topics and concepts, such as process codes and in vivo codes. We will discuss deductive and inductive coding and how a codebook evolves—how we discern emerging codes and assess conceptual shifts during analysis. Our discussion will move from managing codes to developing code hierarchies, identifying code clusters, and building multidimensional themes. We will discuss final research products—how results are framed to underscore cognitive empathy, precision, and emergent discovery.

The course will also discuss using visual tools in analysis, such as diagramming key quotations from data to holistically present the participant’s key narratives. Visual tools can also assist in looking horizontally across many documents to identify and illustrative connective themes and link the parts (quotations or codes) to the whole (themes, documents, or participants).

The course will include daily in-class exercises—both individual and group—including exercises using software.

Structure
Day 1
• Core principles and practices in qualitative data inquiry
• Qualitative research design
· Overview of data types
· Design dimensions: Comparison, time, theory
· Sampling strategies
· Triangulation
• Data collection
• Interviews
• Focus groups
• Other types of data
• Developing interview questions

Day 2
• Analysis practices
o Memo writing
· Document summary memos
· Key-quote memos
· Methods memos
o Using visual tools
· Data collection episode profiles
· Making sense of data using diagrams
o Coding qualitative data
· Deductive vs. Inductive coding
· Descriptive coding
· Interpretive coding
· Coding practices
· Creating a codebook

Day 3
• Introduction to qualitative software
• Writing comments and memos
• Coding data
• Developing a code system
• Creating quotations diagrams
• Analysis
· Exploring codes and memos
· Code co-occurrences
· Codes and demographic variables
· Matrices and diagrams
· Blending quantitative and qualitative data

Day 4
• Methodological traditions
• Grounded theory
• Narrative analysis
• Case study
• Generic qualitative analysis

Day 5
• Comparison of methodological traditions
• Qualitative research design: Revisiting strategies
• In-class exercise: Study design
• Evaluating qualitative articles
• Class discussion

Course leader

Paul Mihas from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States

Target group

The GSERM Global School in Empirical Research Methods is a high-calibre programme dedicated to teaching cutting-edge research methodology. We not only welcome PhD students, post-docs, and graduate students from all kinds of fields, but also professionals working outside of academia.

The methods discussed in the course will be applicable to qualitative studies in a range of fields, including the behavioral sciences, social sciences, health sciences, communications, business, and marketing

Course aim

The primary learning objectives are:
Understand methodological options regarding research design, data collection, and analysis
Understand approaches to developing an interview guide
Gain skills in writing analytic memos, creating diagrams, and coding qualitative data
Understand primary differences among research traditions: grounded theory, narrative analysis, and case study
Gain skills in using qualitative analysis software

Fee info