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Qualitative Data Analysis

Lecturer/Convenor:

Richard Boateng, PhD.

Email:

richard@pearlrichards.org

Office: UGBS RT18 (rooftop)

Arguments with

Qualitative Data

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Class Website

• www.vivaafrica.info

Use the class website WEEKLY, ask/comment on the articles,

and JOIN the FACEBOOK

Please Add your name and the course code

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Learning Objectives

• This session seeks to discuss how to construct and

present analytical explanations on the basis of

qualitative data.

• Making an argument is the construction of a

perspective, an interpretation, or a line of reasoning

or analysis and, significantly, it requires this to be a

relational process, in which the researcher is

continually thinking about and engaging with those to

whom the argument is being made as well as, of

course, the grounds on which they think the

argument stands.

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Reading

• Mason. J. (2003). Making convincing

arguments with qualitative data. In

Qualitative researching (pp. 173–

204). Thousand Oaks, CA; SAGE

Publications.

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Making Arguments

• Arguments are sets of ideas which are expressed

and how they are constituted, in writing or in other

forms, is fundamental

• Making convincing arguments depends upon the

assumption that there are no self-evidently correct

answers to intellectual puzzles or social

phenomena…

• So researchers must show others what led them to

suppose that their argument was appropriate or

persuasive.

• Making an argument therefore involves working out

how to construct, communicate, support and

substantiate it.

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Different Types of Arguments

To argue convincingly, you need to understand:

• What kinds of explanations or arguments can I build

from my data?

• What kinds are outside the scope of my analysis?

• What do I want the explanation or argument to do?

TYPE 1

Arguments about how something has developed

You will construct a developmental argument if you want to

explain how social phenomena, social relationships, social

processes and so on have developed or come to be. Describe

a detailed, contextual and multilayered interpretation of the

developmental processes.

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Different Types of Arguments TYPE 2

Arguments about how something works or is constituted

These arguments provide ‘mechanical’ arguments that focus on

how social phenomena and processes operate or are constituted.

This is because of the rich, contextual and ‘local’ nature of most

qualitative investigation which is done in ‘messy’ contexts.

TYPE 3

Arguments about how social phenomena compare

Comparative arguments aim to draw some explanatory

significance from a specified set of comparisons and

therefore the logic of explanation is tied up with the mechanism

of comparison. In Qual. Research, our sensitivity to context

maximizes the chances of developing fully meaningful points of

comparison.

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Different Types of Arguments TYPE 4

Arguments about causation and prediction

Causal arguments are usually framed in terms of the effects of

variables on each other – However, that is not the focus of

qualitative research. Causality focuses on detail, complexity

and contextuality, and…. not expecting to find a cause and

an effect in any straightforward fashion.

Prediction is concerned with how and why social

phenomena or processes happen in particular

circumstances and particular ways can certainly support

predictive ideas about how those things might vary in

different contexts.

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How to Argue TYPE 1

Arguing evidentially

(‘I can make this argument because I can show you

the relevant evidence’.)

If this is your argument, you will be concerned to

demonstrate that you have marshalled and assembled

your evidence carefully and appropriately. You will need

to be clear about the basis on which you suppose your

data constitute evidence.

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How to Argue TYPE 1

Arguing evidentially Mobiles and Market women in Ghana

In Case A, AA uses her phone’s calendar functionality to schedule the

times to supply her customers who need tomatoes. In Case B, customers

are able to monitor delivery times of goods and plan for contingencies

through text messages. This communication medium creates a borderless

environment or redefines the ‘‘place’’ factor in transacting business with

customers and creating more personalized services for them.

Personalized services lead to deepened relationships, which can

contribute to customer loyalty and retention. Williamson (1981) refers

to this phenomenon of ‘‘deepened relationships’’ as asset specificity, a

transaction characteristic which depict customers ‘‘locked into’’ a

transaction for a considerable time.

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How to Argue TYPE 2

Arguing interpretively or narratively

(‘I can make this argument because I can show

you that my interpretation or my narrative is

meaningful or reasonable’.)

If this is your argument, you will be concerned to

show that your interpretation is sensitive,

appropriately nuanced, and valid.

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How to Argue TYPE 2

Arguing interpretively or narratively

Mobiles and Market women in Ghana

Economic empowerment is evident in both case studies presented above.

For example,

Grace stated that:[. . .] I am able to send simple text messages to inform

customers on maize prices and delivery times.

AA also emphasized that:

[. . .] Therefore, I do not need to be at the market everyday yet still make

my money.

In this respect, the findings suggest that the women traders have gained

some economic empowerment in improved income from cost reduction,

decision making and control in managing the uncertainty in transactions with

trading partners and customers. Thus, the transformational impact observed

is the economic empowerment for the traders.

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How to Argue TYPE 4

Arguing reflexively or multivocally

(‘I can make this argument because I can

make you aware of a meaningful range of

perspectives, experiences and standpoints,

including my own.’)

If this is your argument, you will be seeking to show

a sensitivity to a range of interpretations and voices in

your data, and a willingness to critique and question

your own as well as those of others.

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How to Argue TYPE 4

Arguing reflexively or multivocally

Mobiles and Market women in Ghana

Concerning the level of education and usage behavior, all respondents who

had no formal education actively used mobile phones in all the stages of

trading (see Figure 3). Noting that the number of respondents with no formal

education was only 13 percent of the sample, it is inconclusive to suggest

a significant impact of education on mobile phone usage. However, the

innovative use of calculators in trading was observed. 12 out of the 18 traders

(9 percent of total respondents) with no formal education claimed to use

calculators in trading activities.

This ability to identify basic functions in mobile phones and integrate them in

trading activities is arguably a function of the some level of education and the

perceived ease of using the mobile phones they owned. On further enquiry,

these traders intimated that they often received help from their children,

friends, relatives and sometimes customers in learning some of the

functions of mobile phones, especially with ‘‘simple’’ text messages,

calculators, and use of calendars as reminders.

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Data and Argument

• Positivist Approach

– Connections in Observed data become variables for

explanation

• Realist Approach

– empirical observations can be explained by

underlying mechanisms that are not directly

observable in themselves.

• Interpretive Approach

– interpretations of meanings, experiences, accounts,

actions, events, can be developed into explanations

and understandings

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Theory and Argument • As Coffey and Atkinson put it: ‘Theories are not added only as a final

gloss or justification; they are not thrown over the work as a final

garnish. They are drawn on repeatedly as ideas are formulated,

tried out, modified, rejected, or polished’ (1996: 158).

Role 1

Theory comes first, before empirical research and

analysis, and is tested on or measured against data. The

theory is not derived from data in this version…. If you are

developing theory in this way, you will have stated clear

hypotheses in advance, and your analytical task will be to

measure or match up your data against these.

Deductive Reasoning

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Theory and Argument

Role 1

Theory comes first, before empirical research and analysis, and is

tested on or measured against data. The theory is not derived from data

in this version…. If you are developing theory in this way, you will have

stated clear hypotheses in advance, and your analytical task will be to

measure or match up your data against these.

Deductive Reasoning

Also called the ‘hypotheticodeductive method’, whereby

theoretical propositions or hypotheses are generated in

advance of the research process, and then modified –

usually through a process of falsification – by the empirical

research. This is often characterized as moving from the

general to the particular.

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Theory and Argument

Role 2

Theory comes last and is developed from or through

data generation and analysis.

If you are developing theory in this way, you will probably

begin the process of analysis whilst data generation is

under way, and use a version of theoretical sampling to

augment this. You will scrutinize your data so that you

can develop explanations which appear to fit them.

Inductive Reasoning

like inductive reasoning, where the researcher will develop

theoretical propositions or explanations out of the data, in a

process which is commonly seen as moving from the

particular to the general.

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Theory and Argument

Role 3

Theory, data generation and data analysis are

developed simultaneously in a dialectical process.

If you are developing theory in this way, you will devise a

method for moving back and forth between data analysis

and the process of explanation or theory construction.

Abductive and Retroductive

Reasoning

theory data

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Theory and Argument

Role 3

Others have conceptualized abductive reasoning as moving

back and forth between our own data, our experience, and

broader concepts (Coffey and Atkinson, 1996).

Abductive and Retroductive Reasoning

‘Retroductive research strategy’, which falls somewhere

between roles 1 and 2, in that it begins with data but theorizes a

model of an underlying mechanism which might have produced

patterns seen in the data, and then works backwards from the

data towards verifying or otherwise that model.

The model will include some kind of statement about how – if it is

correct – it might operate under different circumstances, and what

the empirical manifestations would look like, so that it can in effect

be empirically tested.

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Theory and Argument What happens in practice

it is worth pointing out that most research

strategies in practice probably draw on a

combination of these approaches. Are there ‘pure’

forms of, for example, inductive, deductive, abductive or

retroductive reasoning are ever actually practised.

I would also argue that researchers with widely differing

theoretical orientations do actually engage in the practice,

associated with abductive reasoning, of moving back and forth

between data, experience and wider concepts, whether or not

they always explicitly recognize this as part of their research

strategy.

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Empirical and Theoretical Generalization

• Empirical Generalization is based on a logic whereby

you are able to make generalizations from an analysis of

one empirical population (say, your sample) to another,

wider, population (say, all adults in Ghana), on the basis

that your study population was statistically

representative of that wider population.

• Theoretical Generalization encompasses a range of

strategies based on differing logics, some of which look

more obviously ‘theoretical’ than others. Show that you

have tested out your developing explanation by

trying out alternative explanations, and in particular

by looking for negative instances.

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Miles and Huberman’s Data Analysis • Transcendental Realism

– Data reduction, data display and drawing and

verifying conclusion