187 12 Qualitative data analysis Chapter summary This chapter includes: • Advice on preparing qualitative data • Information about coding qualitative data • Ways of analysing qualitative data including content analysis, thematic analysis, discourse analysis and narrative analysis • A real-life example of qualitative data analysis • An overview of data synthesis Introduction In one respect quantitative data analysis is more straightforward, because the data is always numerical – or in a form that can be converted into numbers, such as questionnaire responses
Crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, disasters, or violent conflict present numerous challenges for researchers. Faced with disruption, obstacles, and even danger to their own lives, researchers in times of crisis must adapt or redesign existing research methods in order to continue their work effectively.
Including contributions on qualitative and digital research from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia, and the Americas, this volume explores the creative and thoughtful ways in which researchers have adapted methods and rethought relationships in response to challenges arising from crises. Their collective reflections, strategies, and practices highlight the importance of responsive, ethical, and creative research design and the need to develop methods for fostering mutual, reflexive, and healthy relationships in times of crisis.
, 2019 ). In terms of research paradigms, critical or interpretive approaches are the most suitable to investigations that favour subjective, qualitative studies of sense-making for individuals, communities and cultures (for more information see Bell and Thorpe, 2013 ; Bryman, Bell and Harley, 2019 ). Qualitative approaches Edward Sapir argued that the ‘true locus of culture is in the interactions of specific individuals, and, on the subjective side, in the world of meanings which each one of these individuals may unconsciously abstract for himself from his
PART III Qualitative Research into Happiness/ Wellbeing: Methodological Innovations
distinctions between selection and influence effects. In this paradigm, standardisation of tools and of measurement is essential in accounting for changes or stability across time. By contrast, less standardisation and more flexibility are core assets of qualitative research, which focuses on the practices, complex interaction patterns, perceptions, experiences and interpretations of social actors. Qualitative research aims to understand the meaning of these practices and interpretations in their situational, cultural and historical context. It does so through an iterative
WISC has created a community and place in which stories and experiences can be shared; it has given women the means and tools to do this from an embodied perspective through autoethnography and other reflexive, qualitative approaches. This chapter * will set out what autoethnography and embodiment are, why they are important in the context of STEM, how they are usually missing in other research, and why this is a problem. It will consider the structural barriers that are specific to STEM, and are prevalent within the culture that keeps these stories hidden
291 FOURTEEN Contributions from qualitative research Philip Davies Introduction The relationship between qualitative and quantitative research has challenged social scientists and public policy researchers for most of the past two centuries. The survey research tradition of Charles Booth and Joseph Rowntree has been developed and refined greatly since the early 19th century, part of which has involved integrating qualitative data on people’s perceptions, experiences, values and priorities with respect to a range of public policy issues. At the same time, the
PART I Qualitative Research into Happiness/ Wellbeing: Theories, Debates and Issues
PART II Qualitative Research into Happiness/ Wellbeing: Communities, Biographies and Identities
Introduction The newly discovered coronavirus (COVID-19) has disrupted traditional methods of conducting research, particularly qualitative research. The virus was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020. By then Africa had already recorded a total of 119 cases, with two fatalities, from a total of 12 African countries. Although COVID-19 has been, basically, a public health disaster, it has also ushered in huge changes to the ways in which research, particularly qualitative research, is to be conducted. Its associated
