Qualitative_data_analysis

6 QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
is one more attempt to help plug the pedagogical gap referred to above. The focus is
on the engine rather than on any particular model. My assumption is that the
practical problems of conceptualizing meanings are common to a range of different
perspectives. For example, the interpretive approach of Patton (1980) emphasizes the
role of patterns, categories and basic descriptive units; the network approach of Bliss
and her colleagues (1983) focuses on categorization; the quasi-statistical approach of
Miles and Huberman (1984) emphasizes a procedure they call ‘pattern coding’; and
the ‘grounded theory’ approach of Strauss and Corbin (1990) centres on a variety of
different strategies for ‘coding’ data. Despite the differences in approach and
language, the common emphasis is on how to categorize data and make connections
between categories. These tasks constitute the core of qualitative analysis.
Perhaps more than in most other methodological fields, the acquisition of
qualitative analytic skills has been perceived and presented as requiring a form of
‘learning by doing’ (Fielding and Lee 1991:6). As most methods courses remain
wedded to formal pedagogies, this perspective may explain some of the difficulties
experienced in teaching qualitative methods. However, my own experience suggests
that even a course stressing skills acquisition through research experience and
problem solving requires some sort of framework indicating the variety of skills and
techniques to be acquired. With qualitative data analysis, even this is deficient.
Practitioners have been reluctant to codify or even identify their analytic
procedures, and in a field which stresses the subjective sensibilities and creativity of
the researcher, have generally been suspicious of a ‘recipe’ approach to teaching
qualitative methods.
Of course ‘recipe’ knowledge is devalued in our society—at least amongst academic
circles. Even so, recipes, by indicating which ingredients to use, and what
procedures to follow, can provide an important foundation for acquiring or
developing skills. No one would pretend, of course, that learning a recipe is the
same thing as acquiring a skill. Baking provides a relevant analogy, for it requires a
knack which only experience can impart, as anyone who bakes bread will know; like
qualitative analysis, baking also permits creativity and the development of
idiosyncratic styles. But though the skilled analyst, like the experienced chef, may
eventually dispense with the recipe book, it remains nevertheless a useful pedagogical
device for the newcomer to the art.
A recipe book provides a guide to practice rather than a rule book. Although I
have tried to write this book in a constructive rather than didactic manner, it is all
too easy to slip from the language of ‘can do’ to that of ‘should do.’ It is not my
intention to lay down ‘rules’, so much as show what can be done with qualitative
data. Nevertheless, my own values and inclinations no doubt intrude, and I shall try
to make these explicit at the outset.