Qualitative_data_analysis

Figure 13.20 Identifying positive and negative categories
Using lines to represent connections between categories
OF MAPS AND MATRICES 223
• Length of line can represent the type of relationship
• Arrows can represent the direction of the relationship
• Positive and negative signs can indicate the value of the
relationship
• Line thickness can represent the empirical scope of the relationship
As well as a key to the meaning of our shapes and lines, we can provide additional
information in order to interpret these maps. In order to compare the distance
between two points on a map, we need to know its scale. Otherwise we may be able
to tell that one distance is nearer or further than another, but we won’t be able to
judge what this means in terms of metres or miles. To complete the picture,
therefore, we need to know what these differences in scope actually mean, for
example, in terms of the average number of categorized or linked databits which
have been assigned to a case. We (or rather, the computer) have to use some sort of
scale in terms of which to translate a number into a shape or line of appropriate
dimensions. Does a single line represent an average of one link per case, or ten links
per case, or what? Whatever the scale—and we may have to adjust it according to the
volume of categorized or linked data we are dealing with—if we make it explicit
then the reader can interpret our map accordingly.
Although we have focused on causal connections, mapping can also be used to
explore other relationships. Take the concurrence of categories, for example.
Suppose we are interested in how often our two main categories, ‘incongruity’ and
‘catharsis’ concur in the data. We can map out how far the two categories concur,
and how far they may have been assigned separately to the data. In Figure 13.21 I