Qualitative_data_analysis

Computer transformations
• Searching and interrogating data
• Electronic links between data
• Auditing analysis
INTRODUCING COMPUTERS 63
In the evolution of policy, the solutions of one generation become the problems
of the next. The computer has provided some solutions for qualitative analysts,
particularly with regard to managing and coding data efficiently. It also provides a
new set of tools, in the form of facilities for searching and linking data. What
problems can we anticipate will follow the use of computers for qualitative analysis?
Or are these problems already upon us?
One point is plain; reservations about computer-based analysis are not
attributable simply to the prejudices of those who believe that because computers
are for counting they have no role to play in qualitative analysis. Anxiety is not
confined to the prejudiced. Indeed, those contributing to software development
have been amongst the most vocal in emphasising the drawbacks as well as the
potential of computer-based analysis.
One problem is that the computer may become for this generation what the
motor car was to the last. One of my relatives was so obsessed with his car that he
would not walk to the shop at the end of our road—a distance of some 100 yards.
In the same way, people may become so obsessed with the computer that they
forget that there are other technologies, e.g. pen and paper. Analysis then reduces to
what the computer can do; if the computer cannot do it, then it no longer gets
done. The technology takes over from the task, and data which cannot be analysed
by computer are ignored.
The problem of expecting too much of the computer also finds expression in
unrealistic expectations of the volume of data which can be analysed. The computer
may be able to handle an enormous volume of data; but the analyst may not!
Another reservation often expressed is that use of a computer can encourage a
‘mechanistic’ approach to analysis. In this nightmare scenario, the roles of creativity,
intuition and insight in analysis are eclipsed in favour of a routine and mechanical
processing of data. All that is required of the analyst is to provide the computer with
a catalyst, in the form of a list of categories which can be readily put together
through a brief review of relevant literature and a quick scan through the data. The
computer can then break the data down into bits, and put these bits together again.
All that remains is to write up the results.
In contrast to the vices of this mechanistic manipulator of data, we could set the