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What a load of garbage! A data analysis exercise.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Learning how to analyze qualitative data is difficult for beginning research students, not only because it is a long and complex process, but because it is so different from working with quantitative data, with which students are often more familiar. Working with any data requires interpretation of results by the researcher in order to reach meaningful conclusions. This article describes an exercise in qualitative data analysis that introduces university students to the processes, limits and possibilities of this challenging work.

Introduction

As a lecturer in qualitative research methods for education students at both the BA and MA levels, I am faced with the challenge of presenting qualitative research as a legitimate form of research to students schooled in a positivistic, quantitative tradition. One of the things that worries my students the most is how qualitative researchers' interpretations affect the validity of their findings.

I teach my students that there are rigorous methods of strengthening internal validity, especially triangulation of data, that is, collecting data through observations, interviews and document analysis, as well as having other researchers do reliability checks. These methods, combined with extensive time in the field and continuous reflection and self-checking by the researcher, go a long way towards helping the qualitative researcher overcome his or her biases and assumptions and arrive at conclusions that are truly data-based. (Rock, 2001, p.34).

Once the students learn these approaches they begin to see that qualitative research is not simply based on the subjective perceptions or personal interpretations of the researcher. There are techniques, methods and standards that underlie careful qualitative research. I try to explain to them as well that quantitative research is not automatically "good"--that sloppy quantitative researchers can use poorly designed questionnaires, faulty statistical designs and inappropriate samples, thus reaching unfounded conclusions. There are good and bad, careful and sloppy research studies of every kind.

After the first part of the course my students can accept that there are scientific standards for the conduct of qualitative data collection, but when we approach the subject of data analysis they have another crisis of doubt about the validity of results. There are a number of ways of approaching the analysis of qualitative data. One can do narrative analysis, looking at the structure and holistic content of stories respondents tell. One can...

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