Qualitative_data_analysis

Figure 16.3 Analysis as an iterative process
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review our initial links and categories. At any particular phase in our analysis, we
may return to re-reading the data or look forward to producing our account. Thus
qualitative data analysis tends to be an iterative process (Figure 16.3).
The various ‘stages’ of research which we have presented in logical sequence may
be better thought of as recurrent ‘phases’ through which the analysis passes. Analysis
is therefore akin to a spiral which turns through successive cycles, each (hopefully)
at a higher level as more evidence is accumulated and concepts and connections
become clearer.
Why present analysis as sequential if in practice it is iterative? One reason is that
my account of analysis has been constrained by the medium through which I have
presented it. The use of text imposes a linear and sequential mode of explanation
which is not always appropriate to what is being explicated. As I suggested in
Chapter 13, maps and matrices can help offset this uni-dimensional character of
text, creating a multi-dimensional space in terms of which to present the multiple
facets of social action. But we still depend on text to add the necessary depth and
density to what we have to say.
The use of different tools and procedures may create inconsistencies in our
account, but the tension between them can be useful. As Winston Churchill said,
‘consistency is a virtue of small minds’. In qualitative data analysis, we have to come
to terms with a series of paradoxes. Thus we want to use existing ideas, but not
prejudge the data. We want to break the data up into bits, but also to analyse it as a