Feb 16, 09 (Summary of Interpreting the Data- Creswell)

Crewell (2007) shows us another methodology that how we can interpret the data in qualitative research in this book.

 

 

Researchers engage in interpreting the data when they conduct qualitative research: (p. 154).

 

-       Interpretation involves making sense of the data, the “lessons learned,” as described by Lincoln and Guba (1985). Several forms exist, such as interpretation based on hunches, insights, and intuition.

-       Interpretation might be within a social science construct or idea or a combination of personal views as contrasted with a social science construct or idea.

-       In the process of interpretation, researchers step back and form larger meanings of what is going on in the situations or sites.

-       For postmodern and interpretive researchers, these interpretations are seen as tentative, inconclusive, and questions.

 

 

In the final phase of the spiral, Researchers present the data, a packaging of what was found in text, tabular, or figure form: (p. 154)

 

[EXAMPLE]

Creating a visual image of the information, a researcher may present a comparison table or a matrix- for example, a 2 x 2 table that compares men and women in terms of one of the themes or categories in the study.

 

 

Hypotheses or propositions that specify (상술, 명기) the relationship among categories of information also represent information (p. 154).

 

[EXAMPLE]

In grounded theory, investigators advance propositions that interrelate the causes of a phenomenon with its context and strategies.

 

-       Authors present metaphors to analyze the data, literary devices in which something borrowed from one domain applies to another. Qualitative writers may compose entire studies shaped by analyses of metaphors.

-        

 

 

[중요: SUMMARY of Data analysis and Representation, by Research Approaches]

 

Phenomenology

·      Step #1: Create and organize files for data

·      Step #2: Read through text, make margin notes, form initial codes

·      Step #3: Describe personal experiences through epoche

·      Step #4: Describe the essence of the phenomenon

·      Step #5: Develop significant statements

·      Step #6: Group statements into meaning units

·      Step #7: Develop a textural description, “What happened”

·      Step #8: Develop a structural description, “How” the phenomenon was experienced

·      Step #9: Develop the “essence”

·      Step #10: Present narration of the “essence” of the experience; in tables, figures, or discussion

 

 

Case Study

·      Step #1: Create and organize files for data

·      Step #2: Read through text, make margin notes, form initial codes

·      Step #3: Describe the case and its context

·      Step #4: Use categorical aggregation to establish themes or patterns

·      Step #5: Use direct interpretation

·      Step #6: Develop naturalistic generalizations

·      Step #7: Present in=depth picture of the case (or cases) using narrative, tables, and figures

 

 

[중요 Phenomenological & Case Study Analysis and Representation]- (Creswell, 2007, pp. 159-164)

 

Feb. 14-15, 09 (Summary: Data Analysis in QR)-Important!

 Ok, try to summarize what Creswell talks about how to deal with data analysis in qualitative research (Ch. *) in his book. It is complicated but multiple reading may be needed for understanding and practicing in my research. 

1.     Analytic memos:

Creswell (2007)- Ch. 8 (pp, 148)

THREE ANALYSIS STRATEGIES

-       Step #1: Data analysis in qualitative research consists of PREPARING and ORGANIZATION the DATA

-       Step #2: Reducing the data into themes through a process of coding and condensing the codes

-       Step #3: representing the data in figures, tables, or a discussion.

 

Examples of qualitative researchers:

1.     Madison (2005) presents a perspective taken from critical ethnography.

2.     Huberman and Miles (1994) adopt a systematic approach to analysis.

3.     Wolcott (1994b) uses a more traditional approach to research from ethnography and case study analysis.

 

 

Analytic Strategy:

-       Sketching ideas

-       Taking notes

-       Summarizing field notes

-       Working with words

-       Identifying codes

-       Reducing codes to themes

-       Counting frequency of codes

-       Relating categories

-       Relating categories to analytic framework in literature

-       Creating a point of view

-       Displaying the data

 

The processes of data collection, data analysis, and report writing are not distinct steps in the process.

 

Qualitative researchers often “learn by doing” (Dey, 1993, p. 6) data analysis. This leads critics to claim that qualitative research is largely intuitive, soft, and relativistic or that qualitative data analysts fall back on the three “I’s”- “insight, intuition, and impression” (Dey, 1995, p. 78). – p. 150

 

 

Following the organization of the data, continue analysis by getting a sense of the whole database. “… read the transcripts in their entirety several times. Immerse (파묻다, 액체에 집어넣은) yourself in the details, trying to get a sense of the interview as a whole before breaking it into parts.” (p 150)

 

 

Writing memos in the margins of fieldnotes or transcripts or under photographs helps in this initial process of exploring a database. These memos are short phrases, ideas, or key concepts that occur to the reader.

 

 

Developing CODES or Categories (p. 152):

 

Researchers develop a short list of tentative codes (e.g., 12 or so) that match text segments, regardless of the length of the database.

 

 

CODING PROCESS (Develop codes)

 

1.     Description becomes a good place to start in a qualitative study (after reading and managing data), and it plays a central role in ethnographic and case studies (p. 151).

2.     Develop elaborate lists of codes when they review their databases.

* Creswell suggests that I do not develop more than 25-30 categories of information, and I find myself working to reduce and combine them into the 5 or 6 themes that I will use in the end to write my narrative.

 

 

Several Issues in Coding Process (p. 152):

 

1.     Whether qualitative researchers should count codes.

[SUGGESTION: investigators make preliminary counts of data codes and determine how frequently codes appear in the database.]

[REASON: This is because counting conveys a quantitative orientation of magnitude and frequency contrary to qualitative research.]

 

2.     The use of pre-existing or a priori codes that guide my coding process.

[REASON: A continuum of coding strategies that range from “prefigured” categories to “emergent” categories.]

[SUGGESTION: If a “prefigured” coding scheme is used in analysis, I typically encourage the researchers to be open to additional codes emerging during the analysis.]

 

3.     The question so to the origin of the code names or labels

[REASON: Code labels emerge from several sources. They might be in vivo codes, names that are the exact words used by participants.]

[SUGGESTION: I encourage qualitative researchers to look for code segments that can be used to describe information and develop themes.]- e.g.,

 

·      Represent information that researchers expect to find before the study

·      Represent surprising information that researchers did not expect to find

·      Represents information that is conceptually interesting or unusual to researchers (and potentially participants and audiences)

 

 

As a popular form of analysis, classification involves identifying five to seven general themes.

 

[SUGGESTION: Reducing the data to a small, manageable set of themes to write into my final narrative.]- (p. 153)

 

A related topic is the types of information a qualitative researcher codes and develops into themes:

 

[EXAMPLES]

·      The researcher might look for stories (as in narrative research)

·      The researcher might look for individual experiences and the context of those experiences (in phenomenology)

·      The researcher might look for processes, actions, or interactions (in grounded theory)

·      The researcher might look for cultural themes and how the culture-sharing group works that can be described or categorized (in ethnography)

·      The researcher might look for a detailed description of the particular case or cases (in case study research)

 

Types of information to analyze from qualitative data in all approaches: (pp. 153-154).

Feb 04, 09 ((My Freshman Year-2)

1.     Methodological memos: These memos contemplate changes in your research design or approach to data collection.

 

(My Freshman Year)

Ethnographers and students of ethnography

 

ISSUE 3: Unnamed to preserve all our anonymity (p. 1) e.g AnyU (my pseudonym for my university-p.4)

 

Important Quotations:

In this climate, what students want and how they understand their education are becoming more central to the shape of the modern university (p. 3).

 

 

2.     Faith reflection: Given the focus of this course and the role that field notes play, please include in your field notes, ways in which your faith tradition and values function as a lens in your observations, interviews, and other aspects of the research process

 

 

… I began to hear “A NEW DISCOURSE AS I WAS ENAGED BY OTHER STUDENTS IN CONVERSATION”… (p. 3)

 

I wanted to see how student culture articulates with the institution of the American university, including the vision we have of it, its mission, and its future (p. 5).- The Purpose/Motivation of this book

 

With this inspirational and great motivation for American higher education, the author chose “Unethical ways” as anonymity.

 

I don’t think a good decision despite of a good motivation.