Designing Research for Qualitative Data Analysis
"Qualitative data analysis aims to make sense of the abundant, varied, mostly nonnumeric forms of information that accrue during an investigation. As qualitative researchers, we reflect not only on each piece of data by itself but also on all the data as an integrated, blended, composite package. Increasingly, qualitative researchers are participants in interdisciplinary, mixed-methods research teams for which analytic and interpretive processes are necessarily complementary, distinct, clearly articulated, and critical to the larger investigation. We search for insight, meaning, understanding, and larger patterns of knowledge, intent, and action in what we generate as data. Approaching this task in a responsive, inductive, transparent, yet systematic way demands our best balance of good science, appropriate rigor and quality, and openness to unanticipated findings. Many qualitative studies now include multiple sources of data, including narrative or textual and visual (e.g., photographs, videos, creative works and art, and theatric or performative components) information for analysis. Thorne (2008) describes the analytic process as moving 'from pieces to patterns' (p. 142) through the activities of organizing, reading and reviewing mindfully, coding, reflection, thematic derivation, and finding meaning."
(Jennifer B. Averill)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Purposive / judgmental / selective / subjective research sampling
"To say you will engage in purposive sampling signifies that you see sampling as a series of strategic choices about with whom, where and how to do your research. Two things are implicit in that statement. First is that the way that you sample has to be tied to your objectives. Second is an implication that follows from the first, i.e., that there is no one 'best' sampling strategy because which is 'best' will depend on the context in which you are working and the nature of your research objective(s).
Purposive sampling is virtually synonymous with qualitative research. However, because there are many objectives that qualitative researchers might have, the list of 'purposive' strategies that you might follow is virtually endless, and any given list will reflect only the range of situations the author of that list has considered."
(Ted Palys, 2008)
Palys, T. (2008). "Purposive Sampling". The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods. Lisa M. Given. London, SAGE Publications, Inc. 1&2.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
