Elements of qualitative data

analysis

Graham R Gibbs

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 Contents
Books
Online resources
Philosophy
Data preparation
Coding
Narrative
Charts and tables
CAQDAS

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 Books
Gibbs, G.R. (2007) Analyzing Qualitative Data. London: Sage.
Bernard, H. R., & Ryan, G. W. (2010). Analyzing qualitative data:
Systematic approaches. Los Angeles, [Calif.]; London: SAGE.
Flick, U. (2009). An introduction to qualitative research. Los Angeles,
[Calif.]; London: SAGE.
Flick, U. (2013). The SAGE handbook of qualitative data analysis.
London: SAGE Publications Ltd.
Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: a
sourcebook of new methods. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. The tables in
this video are taken from this edition, but there is a new edition:
Miles, M. B., Huberman, A. M. & Saldaa, J. (2014). Qualitative data
analysis: a sourcebook of new methods. 3rd Ed. Los Angeles, CA:
Sage.
Ritchie, J., Lewis, J., McNaughton Nicholls, C and Ormston, R (eds)
(2013) Qualitative Research Practice: A Guide for Social Science
Students and Researchers. London: Sage.
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 Online resources
OnlineQDA
http://onlineqda.hud.ac.uk
My YouTube Channel
Graham R Gibbs:
https://www.youtube.com/user/GrahamRGibbs
MSc Applied Educational and Social Research @
Strathclyde.
http://www.strath.ac.uk/aer/materials/
QSR for NVivo
http://www.qsrinternational.com/
NCRM
http://www.ncrm.ac.uk/

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 Philosophy
Realist Critical Realist Constructivist
Relativist
Induction Deduction - Abduction

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Data preparation

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Transcription: Who should do it?
Self
Audio typist
Dictation/speech recognition software

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 Self
Tedious but good because it begins data
analysis
Careful reading of whole transcript
produces new ideas etc.
May have no choice if text in a language
few others can understand.

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 Software
Dictation/speech recognition software
Still not good enough to transcribe voice from tape or
digital recording
Because needs v. good quality sound AND learns
your own accent as you use it.
IBM Via Voice or Dragon Dictate
Can listen to tape and then dictate to computer. Still
at best only 95% accurate.
Transcription software
E.g. Express Scribe, F4/F5 Transribe.

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 Prepare text
Anonymise
Maybe easier if this is delayed
Check for accuracy
Member checking (with respondents)?
Use [] for missing text
Use [bribery?] for words you are not sure
about.

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 Levels of transcription
People dont speak in sentences
Repeat themselves
Hesitate, stutter
Use contractions (dont, coz, etc)
Use filler words (like, yknow, er, I mean)
Options
Just the gist
Verbatim
Verbatim with dialect
Discourse level.

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 Just the gist
90% of my communication is with the Sales
Director. 1% of his communication is with me. I
try to be one step ahead, I get things ready,
because he jumps from one project to another.
This morning we did Essex, this afternoon we
did BT, and we haven't even finished Essex
yet.( indicates omitted speech)

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 Verbatim
I dont really know. Ive a feeling that theyre
allowed to let their emotions show better. I think
bereavement is part of their religion and culture.
They tend to be more religious anyway. Im not
from a religious family, so I dont know that side
of it.

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 Verbatim with dialect
s just that one o staff they wind everybody
up, I mean, cos I asked for some money out
o the safe, cos they only keep money in the
safe s our money so I asked for some money
and they wouldnt give it me an I snatched
this tenner what was mine.

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 Conversation analysis
Bashir: Did you ever (.) personally assist him
with the writing of his book. (0.8)
Princess: A lot of people.hhh ((clears throat))
saw the distress that my life was in. (.) And
they felt it was a supportive thing to help (0.2)
in the way that they did.

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Start analysis

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Coding/indexing/categorizing
N.B. confusion because used in quantitative
data where it means putting numbers to
answers.
indexing categories codes themes
= linking chunks of data (text) as
representative of the same phenomenon.
Not necessarily to count them (cf. Content
analysis)

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 Analysis. Bryman suggests
these stages
Stage 1
Read the text as a whole, Make notes at the end
Look for what it is about
Major themes
Unusual issues, events etc
Group cases into types or categories (may
reflect research question e.g. male and
female)

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 Stage 2. Read again
Mark the text (underline, circle, highlight)
Marginal notes/ annotations
Labels for codes
Highlight Key words
Note any analytic ideas suggested.

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 Stage 3. Code the text
Systematically mark the text
Indicate what chunks of text are about themes
Index them.
Review the codes.
Eliminate repetition and similar codes (combine)
Think of groupings
May have lots of different codes (Dont worry at
early stage can be reduced later)

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 Stage 4. Relate general
theoretical ideas to the text.
Coding is only part of analysis
You must add your interpretation.
Identify significance for respondents
Interconnections between codes
Relation of codes to research question
and research literature.

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 Thematic Coding
Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss + Corbin
+ Charmaz)
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
(Jonathon Smith)
Template analysis (Nigel King)
Framework analysis (Ritchie and Lewis)

All are types of thematic analysis.

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 How is coding done?
Text Code
In a village like this ... the young
Age contrast
fellows in the village don't seem
to have much difficulty when Residence focus
they're out of work a fortnight Young find work easily
and they're back again word of
mouth, I'd say. Its a different, Word of mouth
tricky situation that I'm in I just
can't say, Oh, I heard there's a
Contrast situation
job going on building site, Ill go
and have a go for it. I wouldn't
be able to do that. Constrained
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 Questions to ask

Look for the gerunds the doing

"What is going on?
What are people doing?
What is the person saying?
What do these actions and statements take for
granted?
How do structure and context serve to support,
maintain, impede or change these actions and
statements?"
(Charmaz 2003: 94-95)

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 What can codes be about?

Lofland suggests:
1. Acts usually brief events
2. Activities of longer duration in a setting, people involved
3. Meanings what directs participants actions?
a) What concepts they use to understand their world
b) What meaning or significance it has for them.
4. Participation People involvement or adaptation to a
setting
5. Relationships between people, considered
simultaneously
6. Settings the entire context of the events under study

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What can codes be about? 2
Strauss suggests
Conditions
Interactions
Strategies and tactics
Consequences What happens if

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 Ways to identify themes
Ryan and Bernard (2003)
Repetitions
Indigenous typologies (in vivo)
Metaphors and analogies
Transitions (pauses, sections)
Similarities and Differences
Constant comparison
Linguistic connectors
Because, before, after, next, closeness, examples
Missing data (what is omitted)

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 Coding supports 2 forms of
analysis
Retrieval
Using the coding frame

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 1. Retrieval
Retrieve all the text coded with the same label =
all passages about the same phenomenon, idea,
explanation or activity - Literally cut and paste
Used envelopes/files - Now done using software
Enables cross case comparison on same theme.

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 2. Developing the coding frame
Use the list of codes to examine further
kinds of analytic questions, e.g.
relationships between the codes (and the text
they code)
Code dimensions
grouping cases

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 Data driven or concept driven?
Inductive or deductive
Most qualitative analysis does both
i.e. start with some theoretical ideas
these derived from literature, research
brief/questions, interview schedule
and
discover new ideas, theories, explanations in the
data.
Strauss - sociologically constructed codes vs. in
vivo codes
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 Description to analytic
1 BARRY
2 Well, the only thing that we've really given up is - well we used to
3 go dancing. Well she can't do it now so I have to go on my own,
4 that's the only thing really. And then we used to go indoor bowling
5 at the sports centre. But of course, that's gone by the board now. So
6 we don't go there. But I manage to get her down to works club, just
7 down the road on the occasional Saturdays, to the dances. She'll sit
8 and listen to the music, like, stay a couple of hours and then she's
9 had enough. And then, if it's a nice weekend I take her out in the
10 car.
Dancing, Indoor bowling, Dances at works club, Descriptive codes
Drive together
Joint activities ceased, Joint activities continuing Categories
Loss of physical co-ordination, Togetherness,
Analytic codes
Doing for, Resignation, Core activity
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 Example code hierarchy

Friendship types
Close, generalized
Sporting
Club
Non-club
Work
Changes in Friendship
Making new friends
New same sex friends
New different sex friends
Losing touch
Becoming sexual relationships
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 Example showing analysis
One of a set of interviews by Wendy Hollway and Tony
Jefferson.
On fear of crime
Will use some of this for a group work exercise.
Part of interview with:
Barbara 65, F, White,Retired nursing auxiliary,
Interview covered, Husband's death, ill health, sister -
prison, stealing & drug taking, tenants association. From
low crime area.

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INT So you say - well 2 of those things happened after - when you've
been talking to this accountant friend of yours. How did it come
up? I mean that's er, you'd been alone for quite a while ....
BARBARA They'd been burgled.
INT Right.
BARBARA And they got through a little window like this. Actually 'e'd got a
young lad with 'im. And er, Margaret's engagement ring and she
says "that was the one thing - that was the one thing, it grieved
me more than anything" she said. "They could 'ave the
television, the lot" she said. But the fact that they took 'er
engagement ring
INT Yeah.
BARBARA That upset 'er. And er, we were just talking in general and - and
it came up and I says er, "I've got a chain on my door." And 'e
says er, "it's not strong enough that, Barbara." He says "you
really want something else on" and 'e went - his daughter lived
up Stokebridge and 'e went to a little shop up there, or
something. And got me that chain
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BARBARA And 'e put it on and you can lock it. If you put it on as you're
going out, er, its 'ook, and then you 'ave to unlock it to let it drop.
INT Ah ha.
BARBARA When you come in.
INT Oh right.
BARBARA You know, you can push the door and it - oh and it is strong as
well.
INT Ah ha. And the 4 locks on the back? Do they date back further?
BARBARA Oh God, yeah.
INT So you had lots of security even when your husband was alive?
BARBARA Oh yeah, mmm. Mmm. Em, I've got one of those dead locks at
the top.
INT Yeah.
BARBARA You know, they're just a hole in the door and they're not from
outside, they're only from inside. And even that locks wrong way.
You 'ave to turn it that way to unlock it. (laugh).

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 Notice
Interviewer and respondent names are in
capitals
Wide margins and space and a half
between lines
Use of contractions
Place names and peoples names
anonymised

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 Read through
About neighbour being burgled
Lost TV etc. and engagement ring
Old and new security on front door.
Replaced by friend.

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 Mark up text
Annotations and codes.

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 Coding Frame
Crime experienced (the type of crime
participants discuss having experienced
themselves or by their friends and neighbours).
Burglary
Vandalism
Violence
But these descriptive. Be analytic. E.g.
Low level (not reported etc.)
Significant (with emotional impact)

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 Coding Frame, cont.
Security measures (What measures people have taken
to protect themselves, their property etc. both in the past
and more recently).
Chain
Dead lock
Burglar alarm
Safe
Car alarms
Personal Alarm
Stay in
Walk with others

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 Coding Frame, cont.
But these descriptive. Be analytic. E.g.
Physical, technology
Behavioural
Psychological (lights on timer etc.)

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 Coding Frame, cont.
Feelings about experience of crime
Frightened
Hurt by loss (especially personal items)

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 Descriptive vs Analytic/theoretical
Descriptive
Just what the people said
What happened
Their terms
Analytic
Use social science theory
Groups codes together
Use terms the respondents dont or wouldnt

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Narrative

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 Narrative, Life History and Biography
Story and narrative = the way that social actors
produce, represent and contexualize their experience
and personal knowledge. How they make sense of
what happened.
Narrative is the wide, general term.
Story restricted to genre that recounts protagonists,
events, complications and consequences.
Data can come from interviews, biography,
autobiography, life history interview, personal letters,
diaries etc.
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 Three Theorists
Norman Denzin
Narrative as a story of a sequence of events with
significance for narrator and audience.
Story has beginning, middle and end and a logic.
Narratives are temporal = have a causal sequence.
Catherine Kohler Riessman (1993) Elliot Mishler
(1986)
During research interviews, respondents often include
lengthy stories.

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 Four types of narrative/life history.
Lieblich et al (1998)

Content Form

Holistic 1 2
Categorical 3 4

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 1. Holistic content
Looks at complete life story and examines its
content. Familiar in clinical case studies.
Use familiar qualitative methods to identify key
themes.
Look for transitions between themes
Episodes that seem to contradict themes in terms of
content, mood or evaluation by the narrator.
Pay attention to the issues that are not mentioned.

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 Typical themes
Relational story - constantly referring to others.
Belonging and separateness.
Closeness, remoteness and experience of moving.
The meaning of the occupation (e.g vocation)
Relations with opposite sex
Can focus on early life as determinant of later
actions. (following Adler)

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 2. Holistic form

Looks at the plot or structure of complete life stories.

Romance hero faces a series of challenges en route to
his goal and eventual victory

Comedy goal is the restoration of social order and the

hero must have the requisite social skills to
overcome the hazards that threaten that order.
Tragedy the hero is defeated by the forces of evil and is
ostracised from society.

Satire a cynical perspective on social hegemony

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 Progression
Does story ascend or descend? Climax, turning
point (epiphany) etc.
Advance - story moves to better things
Regression - story moves to worse things
Stable - plot is steady, neither worse nor
better, just the same.

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 3. Categorical content
Essentially a content analysis. Extract
categories, and count and cross-tabulate.

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 4. Categorical form

Discrete linguistic or stylistic linguistic characteristics.

Metaphors used, passive vs. active.
e.g. use linguistic features to identify inner meaning of
events to narrator.
Adverbials like suddenly may indicate how expected or
unexpected events were.
Mental verbs like I thought, I understood, and I noticed, may
indicate extent to which an experience is in consciousness and
can be remembered.

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 4. Categorical form cont.
Denotations of time and place may indicate attempts to
distance an event or bring it closer
Past, present and future tense in verbs and transition
between them, may indicate a speakers sense of
identification with the events described.
Transitions between first-person, second-person and third-
person voice may indicate difficulty of re-encountering a
difficult experience.
Passive and active verbs may indicate speakers perception of
agency.

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 4. Categorical form cont.

Breaking chronological or causal flow with digressions,

regressions, leaps in time etc. may indicate attempts to avoid
discussion difficult experience.
Repetition may indicate that subject of discussion elicits an
emotional charge for narrator.
Detailed description may indicate reluctance to describe
difficult emotions.
Method - underline just the words referring to the factual
events described. Then examine all the words not
underlined.
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 Formal narrative analysis
Use the structure to identify how people tell stories
the way they do.
How they give shape to events
How they make a point
How they package the narrated events
Their reaction to events
How they articulate their narratives with the
audience.

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 Forms and Functions of Stories

A way of passing cultural heritage or organizational

culture.
e.g. use of atrocity stories and morality fables in
occupational and organizational settings
medical settings use of fables of incompetence gives
warnings of what not to do)
Oral culture of schoolchildren - urban legends.
A way of coming to terms with particularly sensitive or
traumatic times or events. E.g. divorce or violence.

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 Forms and Functions cont.
To structure idea of self and self identity.
Psychological view. Stories imitate life and present an
inner reality to the outside world. They shape
narrators identity. The story is ones identity. We
know or discover ourselves and reveal ourselves to
others by the stories we tell.
Show how the actor frames and makes sense of a
particular set of experiences E.g.
Measures of success
Overcoming adversity
Good and bad practice
Explanations of success or failure
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 Success and moral tales
Collective reminder of what not to do and how not
to be.
Common theme = overcoming of difficulties and
achievement of success
Challenge > Adversity > Success.
+ Key turning points (epiphanies)

Can use these as a starting point for further

exploration in analysis.
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 Narrative as chronicle.
A form of autobiography.
Actors organize their lives through stories and so
make sense of them.
How it happened how I came to be where I am
today.
e.g. Notion of CAREER
occupational career
other social roles - e.g. parent, children, patients.

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Diagrams, charts and tables

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 Use for
Clarification in elicitation process (share with
respondents)
Develop ideas about a model, processes etc.
Illustrate examples and your argument
Lay out data so that patterns can be discovered
Data reduction

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Miles, M.B. and Huberman, A.M. (1994) Qualitative data analysis: a sourcebook of new methods.
Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. p. 133

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 Matrices
Simple, like crosstabs. Exclusive values in each cell
Or
Non-exclusive values in each cell
See: Ritchie, J. and Lewis, J. (eds) (2003) Qualitative
Research Practice: A Guide for Social Science
Students and Researchers. London: Sage.

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Character of company departments

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 Summary responses by codes
Cells contain typical or summaries of text
from respondents
E.g. Job search strategies by gender

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Job search strategies by gender

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Example of a comparison within a single case

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Flow of people through job finding services

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Miles, M.B. and Huberman, A.M. (1994) Qualitative data analysis: a sourcebook of
new methods. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. p. 225. Slide 73 73
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 CAQDAS
Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis
CAQDAS Networking Project
http://www.surrey.ac.uk/sociology/research/rese
archcentres/caqdas/

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 Current best selling programs
NVivo
Atlas.ti
MAXQDA
HyperRESEARCH
QDAMiner
But still small companies cf. Microsoft.
NVivo sold 400,000, vs Millions for Office

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 Functions
Coding - mark text with code
Retrieve - show all text coded the same way.
Complex retrievals e.g. text coded with two codes.
Memos
Search (text and codes) & Textual analysis tools
Charts & diagrams
Link with quants data
Relations
Word and pdf documents
Images, video and audio
GIS
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 Debates about CAQDAS
Distant from data
Too easy to move to quantify
Dominance of code and retrieve
Vs narrative thread
Vs postmodern variation
Fragmentation and decontextualisation
Coding loses interaction in focus groups
Needs time and resources to learn

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 Advantage of CAQDAS
Faster and more efficient
Helps explanations (eg. Use face sheet
data)
Supports transparency
Code trees encourage looking at
connections
Avoids anecdotalism - can check
frequency

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