Qualitative_data_analysis

18 QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
‘qualitative’ if I (sadly but honestly) select ‘grey’ from a list of alternatives, than if I
write ‘grey’ in the space provided?
Ironically, in defining qualitative data in terms of unstructured data or a
particular family of research methods, qualitative analysts underestimate the
significance of qualitative data across the whole research spectrum. They also
underestimate the concern amongst other research traditions with problems of
meaning and conceptualization (Fielding and Fielding 1986, Bryman 1988). Rather
than counter-posing qualitative and quantitative data in this way, it makes more
sense to consider how these can complement each other in social research (Giarelli
1988).
To do so, let us look in more detail at different levels of measurement in social
research. Here I am taking measurement in its broadest sense, as the recognition of a
limit or boundary. As Bohm (1983:118) has argued, this is also its most ancient
sense, as in the idea of a ‘measured’ action or response which acknowledges the
proper limits to behaviour. Measurement referred to insight into the proper nature
of the phenomenon; if behaviour went beyond its proper measure or limit, the
result would be ill-health—or tragedy. Such limits can be recognized through
qualitative assessment as well as specified more precisely through quantitative
measures. Indeed, the specification of precise proportion was initially a subsidiary
element of measurement, of secondary significance, though it has since supplanted
the more general notion of recognizing the proper limit or boundary of some
phenomenon.
When we look at different levels of measurement, we find that numbers and
meanings are related at all levels. A concept is an idea which embraces a number of
observations which have characteristics in common. When we bring observations
together as having some significance in common, we count them as belonging to the
concept. The word count derives from the Latin ‘computare’, with the roots ‘com’,
meaning together, and ‘putare’ meaning to calculate or reckon. (The term computer
derives from the Latin ‘computare’). Counting therefore has a double meaning. We
use it to refer to significance, as in the expression ‘that observation doesn’t count’;
and we use it to refer to enumeration, as in the expression ‘count the observations’.
So conceptualization even at the most elementary level is informed by number. And
even at the most elementary level of enumeration, counting depends on the
meaning of what we ‘reckon together’.
The first step in recognizing a limit or boundary is to give a description of
something. When my daughter describes ‘what happened at school this afternoon’,
she is telling a story about a unique sequence of events. Much of the qualitative data
produced through fieldwork methods or open-ended interview questions may be of
the same narrative form. We describe by focusing on the characteristics of something
—perhaps a person, object, event or process. No explicit comparison need be