Qualitative Methods

• Data consist of:
  • words
  • actions

• Can take multiple forms
  • audio tapes
  • video tapes
  • transcriptions
  • written documents
  • field notes

Qualitative Data Analysis

• Involves
  • interpretation
  • consolidation
  • identifying themes
  • looking for patterns

• requires
  • deep familiarity with the data
  • thorough review of the data
    • watching videos
    • reading transcripts
  • understanding of personal biases and perspectivies
    • identifying biases before analysis

• process
  • review of data
  • extraction of themes/recurring ideas
  • identification of data exemplifying these ideas/themes

• What tools are available
  • written transcripts can be ‘marked up’
  • computer programs help with organization of written data (e.g., transcripts)
    • The Ethnograph
    • QSR-NUDIST

Quantitative Analysis

• Data consist of
  • countable things
    • number of people following a link
    • time between reaching page and following link
    • number of students in the class

• The translation of CONCEPTS into COUNTABLE things is the first difficult step in quantitative approaches
  • involves REDUCTION of the data
    • making it less than it is originally
    • ‘attraction’ translates to a scale score
    • ‘depression’ tranlates to a Beck Depression Inventory score

What happens next?

• Once we have numbers we need to
  • summarize them
  • draw conclusions

What Assistance?

• Analysis programs
  • spreadsheets (e.g., Excel)
  • dedicated statistics programs (e.g., SPSS)