[Air-l] qualitative analysis of discussion board postings

[Drew Ross]

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 at 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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