Qualitative_data_analysis

248 QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
Figure 15.1 The whole is greater than the sum of the parts—1
conceptual focus right through to our final efforts to produce an integrated account.
This includes our first creative encounters with the data when reading and
annotating, our efforts to conceptualize the data through categorizing and linking,
our attempts to identify relationships between concepts through matrices and
mapping, and our ‘testing’ of ideas and evidence when searching for corroboration.
If we have noted our decisions at each stage in the process, we should have a wealth
of material to draw upon in auditing our account.
For example, take the evolution of categories which we have used in the analysis.
By keeping a ‘dictionary’ of category definitions, we not only increase the efficiency
and reliability with which we can assign categories during the analysis. We also
provide an interesting record of how that category has evolved during the analysis. As
we encounter new data and add new criteria to govern their assignation, the
boundaries of the category become less permeable and the concept it expresses
becomes more transparent. Or perhaps we find that we cannot develop a set of
criteria, sufficiently distinctive and internally coherent to justify the continued use
of the category, and amend (or discard) it accordingly. This conceptual evolution
involves a succession of ‘close encounters’ with the data and it is the reasoning
provoked by these encounters which shapes the final outcome of our analysis. In
other words, the product—a particular conceptualization—is embedded in the
process we have followed; and we cannot account for the product without also
explaining the process.
Stories are also accessible because the separate elements of the story blend
together into a satisfying whole which is more than the sum of the individual parts
(Figure 15.1).
The story is not just a juxtaposition of individual parts, for these have to be
organized in a way which makes it in some sense holistic and indivisible. The story
moves us in its entirety. This requires an integration of the various elements, so that
the story acquires an intelligible shape, just as—to ressurect an earlier analogy—the