Re: [Air-l] qualitative analysis of discussion board postings
Hello all, I would also suggest NVivo, which is relatively easy to figure out, though it has some user interface issues that are annoying. That said, however, I was once in a jam with no access to qualitative software at all. I used the "open sort" method, which can be done very well with a few tools: 1. post it notes 2. pens 3. a really big wall 4. no wind I coded the transcripts from interviews this way with a pile of the transcripts on my lap, and a ready post-it note, on which I scribbled a new theme every time it came up. Eventually, you find yourself repeating....yourself. And then you just start arranging and re-arranging the post its into over-arching themes. This method works very well with groups as well, and I employ it regularly in my work at a Web agency (we frequently have to organize large amounts of technical requirements and map those back to user research we have done). And about grounded theory, well, I think that person may have been talking about poor uses of grounded theory. One should only employ this is one is looking to develop an actual theory about, say, technical requirements gathering. I could conceive of a theory like, "determinants of technical requirements gathering include; socio-political context; timing; and technical architecture" or something. But lord knows that this term has been abused because people think they are using grounded theory if they "ground" their work in "theory. " Bah. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sam Ladner Account Planner CRITICAL MASS 12th Floor 11 King Street West Toronto, ON M5H 4C7 e: saml@criticalmass.com v: 416.673.5275 ext. 3244 ~~~~~~~~~~~~
-----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Jeremy Hunsinger Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2006 6:40 AM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-l] qualitative analysis of discussion board postings
this "grounded theory has been busted for the nonsense that it is" sounds suspiciously like what i termed methodological ideology. If it isn't ideological, perhaps it is just a form of methodological orthodoxy. I'm not going to say that grounded theory is good or great personally, as i've only read a few texts and never used it, it does seem to be one of the major theories that frames qualitative analysis. I think the key to grounded theory is to realize that is designed to discover theories, which is a problematic concept in some ways. if you aren't in the process of 'theory development' then it might not be the model for you. in any case, there is a ton of dissertations, and related 'quality' scholarship in using grounded theory that to the casual observer indicates that it has some usefulness. i'd propose suspending judgement until sufficient citations are provided.
There are many ways of thinking and analyzing the world that would be antagonistic toward grounded theory. i can imagine if one is a practice-turn ethnographer that the facility for theory discovery seems less necessary in the face of the brute facts of the experiences that you describe. But, I don't know.
i think the best way to think of methods is methodological pluralism, which in my mind argues that there are many ways to access knowledge and that the knowledge generated is always the same sort about the same thing, but in the end the application of one suite of methodoligical tools to its appropriate data is as valuable as another suite and that any given analysis is likely to be limited by the methods used.
On Aug 10, 2006, at 4:11 AM, Denise N. Rall wrote:
Dear Ulla et al.-
Thanks for the framing theory. I was going to recommend *anything but* grounded theory - as Georgina Born said recently in Masterclass (sorry but she's cool) - "grounded theory has been busted for the nonsense it is" but unfortunately I forget who said this. She's an ethnographer so there might be some bias built in there.
Cheers, Denise
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hi all, just share a thought on the topic of qualitative analysis and grounded theory. i think the emerging use of CAQDAS has been evident as a subfield of expertise, are now widespread and is a fast-growing field. to a full review of literatures and existing software has already been done since long time ago (e.g. Burgess, 1995; Tesch, 1990; Weaver and Atkinson, 1994; Weitzman and Miles, 1994). to me, it is important however, to note that computer-based approaches of this sort depend on procedures for coding the text (interview transcripts, field notes, transcribed recordings, documents) which means marking the text in order to tag particular segments of the text. codes are thus attached to discrete stretches of data. by doing this, the purpose is twofold. first, it facilitates the attachment of these codes to the data. second, it allows the researcher to retrieve all instances in the data that share a code. in addition, CAQDAS also allow user to do things like attaching analytic or other memos to specific points in the text. the aim of this is to incorporate many of the key tasks of 'grounded theory' within the software applications. there is, therefore, a close relationship between the processes of coding and the use of CAQDAS, which needs warning. although it has been sometime ago, i found Lonkila's note (1995) useful on this issue. she has summarised key features of two CAQDAS programs, i.e. ATLAS/ti and NUD*IST: "It seems clear that the development of the two programs mentioned has been strongly influenced by grounded theory. But it does not follow from this that they can only be (or actually are) used in an analysis in line with grounded methodology. However, nearly all of the programs developed specifically for qualitative data analysis tell us: if you want to do qualitative research with the computer, you have to code your data. How you do it, is basically up to you (even if some of the programs and many of the articles written on computer-assisted qualitative data analysis suggest that the researcher get acquainted with grounded theory). It may be that at least some kind of coding is needed in most qualitative research, but it is also possible that coding is overemphasized, given the fact that a large part of the qualitative researcher's work consists of interpretation and a fine-grained hermeneutic analysis." (Lonkila, 1995: 48-49) it is suggested that aspects of grounded theory have been over-emphasized in the development and use of qualitative data analysis software, while other approaches have been neglected in comparison. therefore, there is a danger that researchers may be led implicitly towards the uncritical adoption of a particular set of strategies as a consequence of adopting computer-aided analysis. CAQDAS offers a variety of useful ways of organizing data in order to search them, but coding data using software is not analysis. btw, i am now using Atlas.ti as it handles multimedia data (audio, video) nicely. i can mark particular segments in the audio/video recording, etc. and continue with my analysis best, yanuar related references: Burgess, R. G. (1995), 'Computing and Qualitative Research', Studies in Qualitative Methodology No. 5, Greenwich CT: JAI Press Lonkila, M. (1995) 'Grounded theory as an emerging paradigm for computer-assisted qualitative data analysis', in U. Kelle (eds) Computer-Aided Qualitative Data Analysis, London: Sage Tesch, R. (1990) Qualitative Research: Analysis Types and Software Tools. London: Falmer Weaver, A. and P. Atkinson (1994) Microcomputing and Qualitative Data Analysis. Aldershot, Hants: Avebury Weitzman, E. A. and M. B. Miles (1994) Computer Programs for Qualitative Analysis. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage ---------------------------------- Yanuar Nugroho http://myprofile.cos.com/yanuar-n Research Assistant & PhD Researcher PREST - Institute of Innovation Research The University of Manchester
Two things: (1) I think also there appears to be a colossal misunderstanding of what grounded theory and CAQDAS entail-- they are NOT about counting frequencies or events-- that is, by definition, *quantitative* research. 'Sense making,' as Ulla puts it, is precisely what grounded theory is all about. It is also what CAQDAS is designed to assist with, mainly as a tool to help organize and structure very large or unwieldy datasets. (2) Yanuar Nugroho's posting here is an almost verbatim reproduction of Coffey, et al.'s article: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/1/1/4.html#top, which interestingly, is not cited in that message. Drew Ross Visiting Research Fellow Oxford University, OUDES On 8/10/06, Yanuar Nugroho <yanuar-n@unisosdem.org> wrote:
hi all, just share a thought on the topic of qualitative analysis and grounded theory.
i think the emerging use of CAQDAS has been evident as a subfield of expertise, are now widespread and is a fast-growing field. to a full review of literatures and existing software has already been done since long time ago (e.g. Burgess, 1995; Tesch, 1990; Weaver and Atkinson, 1994; Weitzman and Miles, 1994).
to me, it is important however, to note that computer-based approaches of this sort depend on procedures for coding the text (interview transcripts, field notes, transcribed recordings, documents) which means marking the text in order to tag particular segments of the text. codes are thus attached to discrete stretches of data. by doing this, the purpose is twofold. first, it facilitates the attachment of these codes to the data. second, it allows the researcher to retrieve all instances in the data that share a code. in addition, CAQDAS also allow user to do things like attaching analytic or other memos to specific points in the text. the aim of this is to incorporate many of the key tasks of 'grounded theory' within the software applications. there is, therefore, a close relationship between the processes of coding and the use of CAQDAS, which needs warning.
although it has been sometime ago, i found Lonkila's note (1995) useful on this issue. she has summarised key features of two CAQDAS programs, i.e. ATLAS/ti and NUD*IST:
"It seems clear that the development of the two programs mentioned has been strongly influenced by grounded theory. But it does not follow from this that they can only be (or actually are) used in an analysis in line with grounded methodology. However, nearly all of the programs developed specifically for qualitative data analysis tell us: if you want to do qualitative research with the computer, you have to code your data. How you do it, is basically up to you (even if some of the programs and many of the articles written on computer-assisted qualitative data analysis suggest that the researcher get acquainted with grounded theory). It may be that at least some kind of coding is needed in most qualitative research, but it is also possible that coding is overemphasized, given the fact that a large part of the qualitative researcher's work consists of interpretation and a fine-grained hermeneutic analysis." (Lonkila, 1995: 48-49)
it is suggested that aspects of grounded theory have been over-emphasized in the development and use of qualitative data analysis software, while other approaches have been neglected in comparison. therefore, there is a danger that researchers may be led implicitly towards the uncritical adoption of a particular set of strategies as a consequence of adopting computer-aided analysis. CAQDAS offers a variety of useful ways of organizing data in order to search them, but coding data using software is not analysis.
btw, i am now using Atlas.ti as it handles multimedia data (audio, video) nicely. i can mark particular segments in the audio/video recording, etc. and continue with my analysis
best, yanuar
related references: Burgess, R. G. (1995), 'Computing and Qualitative Research', Studies in Qualitative Methodology No. 5, Greenwich CT: JAI Press Lonkila, M. (1995) 'Grounded theory as an emerging paradigm for computer-assisted qualitative data analysis', in U. Kelle (eds) Computer-Aided Qualitative Data Analysis, London: Sage Tesch, R. (1990) Qualitative Research: Analysis Types and Software Tools. London: Falmer Weaver, A. and P. Atkinson (1994) Microcomputing and Qualitative Data Analysis. Aldershot, Hants: Avebury Weitzman, E. A. and M. B. Miles (1994) Computer Programs for Qualitative Analysis. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage
---------------------------------- Yanuar Nugroho http://myprofile.cos.com/yanuar-n Research Assistant & PhD Researcher PREST - Institute of Innovation Research The University of Manchester
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hi drew, and all.
(2) Yanuar Nugroho's posting here is an almost verbatim reproduction of Coffey, et al.'s article: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/1/1/4.html#top, which interestingly, is not cited in that message.
you're correct. in the original message HTML i actually put a line after
just share a thought on the topic of qualitative analysis and grounded theory.
[line here and graphic text "excerpt from www.socresonline.org.uk/1/4/html#top"] and anoter [line and graphic text "excerpt ends"] before
btw, i am now using Atlas.ti as it handles multimedia data (audio, video)
i don't know why, but i think the HTML line and HTML formatted/graphic text does not appear in this list - it just simply a text without format. also, the reference should actually be slightly longer. it missed a couple of lines at the end which should read: "in addition, you might also want to read: Lee, R. M. and N. G. Fielding (1991) 'Computing for Qualitative Research: Options, Problems and Potential', in N. G. Fielding and R. M. Lee (eds) Using Computers in Qualitative Research, London: Sage" i am really sorry. i don't mean to plagiarise coffey's et. al. do appologies. all best, y ---------------------------------- Yanuar Nugroho http://myprofile.cos.com/yanuar-n Research Assistant & PhD Researcher PREST - Institute of Innovation Research The University of Manchester
participants (3)
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Drew Ross -
Sam Ladner -
Yanuar Nugroho