INFO 272 Qualitative Research Methods Data Analysis A

INFO 272. Qualitative Research Methods Data Analysis: A Grounded Theory Approach

The Iterative Model 1) research topic/questions 2) ‘corpus construction’ Field work 3) data gathering 4) analysis 4) more analysis Desk work 5) write-up

Grounded Theory Analytic codes and categories arise out of the data Simultaneous involvement in data collection and analysis (or very rapid iteration) ‘Sampling’ aimed toward theory construction Lit review after analysis

From Analysis to Write up 5) draft writing 3) theoretical coding 2) focused coding 1) Initial coding Granularity 4) memo-writing

Coding… …is attaching labels to segments of data that depict what each segment is about …is the bones of your analysis …forces you to interact with your data (again and again) …does not just summarize, but analyzes your data

Coding: Key concepts Granularity varies Word-by-word, line-by-line, incident-to-incident observational data vs. interviews Ideas, categories, concepts must “earn their way” into your analysis in vivo codes (close attention to language) Constant comparative method Are provisional! (code quickly)

Remain open Stay close to the data Keep codes simple and precise Construct short codes Preserve actions [gerunds – i. e. shifting, interpreting, avoiding, predicting] Compare data with data Move quickly through the data 1) Initial coding

Take most frequent and analytically interesting codes from the initial coding Tying emerging concepts to the data (verification process) 2) focused coding 1) Initial coding

After Coding: Some Heuristics Sorting and Diagramming Concept charting Flow diagrams Lofland and Charmaz have many suggestions

Transitioning between codes and full write up Something like blog-writing (could even be a public or private blog) 4) memo-writing 2) focused coding 1) Initial coding

Timesavers and Shortcuts Moving along quickly to ‘focused coding’ Do ‘initial’ coding on a selection of the data (the early data, the most rich material) Software (helpful for searching especially) – NVivo or even Microsoft One. Note

A Coding Exercise