Qualitative_data_analysis

If we want to make this change, it is not enough to change the place of categories
on the map. We must also change the name of the categories assigned to the data. The
category ‘occupation’ must now be assigned to all the databits, including those
previously assigned only to the category ‘task’. The category ‘other than task’ must
be assigned to all the databits which were previously assigned to ‘occupation’.
Fortunately the computer can facilitate this task by automatically finding the
relevant databits and renaming the categories assigned to them. This should be as
easy to accomplish as our initial categorization, or we may be encouraged by
technical constraints to be less flexible than we should be in the subsequent
development of our analysis. In other words, it should be as easy to correct our
mistakes as it was to make them in the first place!
Although we have clarified our distinction conceptually, we may still doubt its
empirical value. Does it distinguish usefully between our databits? To compare the
categories, we must look at the databits which we have assigned to each category
(Illustration 10.6).
Here we may receive some reassurance from the fairly even distribution of the
data between the two categories. This suggests that differing conceptions of task are
more central to the analysis than the various other occupation characteristics which
we have rather crudely lumped together under the ‘other than task’ category. At this
point, we may decide that it would be worthwhile discriminating more effectively
amongst these databits, perhaps dividing occupational characteristics into such
aspects as recruitment, remuneration, retirement etc. where expectations clearly
differ as between dentists and artists! On the other hand, the empirical power of our
category ‘task’ may encourage us to focus on this data instead and set aside (at least
for the moment, and possibly for good) any further differentiation amongst other
occupational characteristics. At any rate, we may want to retain the category and not
collapse it into a less differentiated category such as occupation.
ILLUSTRATION 10.6
COMPARING DATABITS BETWEEN CATEGORIES
Other than task Task
1. I can’t work to order like a common
tradesman.
2. (Cézanne) is old and infirm and
unable to hold the instruments and
they must be tied to his wrists.
SPLITTING AND SPLICING 151
1. I made her bridge as I felt it and not
to fit her ridiculous mouth!
2. I decided her bridge should be
enormous and billowing, with wild,
explosive teeth flaring up in every
direction like fire!