Analysis and Presentation of Qualitative Data

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QUIZ: Major assignment 2

DATE: 28/07/1016

The quiz shows that I am a Casual Contributor. It shows that while I consider social change as a necessity and I do participate once in a while it is not something I consider as a life long commitment. However, when I participate in activities for social change I most likely have an interest of helping my community locally but not to address larger global issues. My concern about the poor is one of the major reasons why I would like to create a difference. I do not have commitments at home like having children therefore I tend to not be engaged in social work due to my faith or work.

Data is usually analyzed so as to obtain helpful and usable data. Depending on whether the data is qualitative or quantitative analysis should describe and summarize the information, it should also compare twp or more variables and identify the differences between them. While conducting qualitative research one should either be exploring how a theory or model is applied in different contexts or they are hoping to discover a theory or model from the data collected, This means that in as much as a researcher may have some ideas about their topic they are also looking for insight and ideas from practitioners or other experts in the field.

Analyzing qualitative data entails uncovering or understanding the big picture by utilizing data to describe a phenomenon and what this means. Qualitative analysis involves naming and encoding all the data so the similarities and differences can be realized. Responses from even a not so organized qualitative interview can be placed in to a computer so that it can be counted, coded and then analyzed. Even though most often the qualitative researcher may not have a pre-coding system he should find a method or means of identifying and labeling or coding the data and this is therefore referred to as content analysis. Content analysis entails grouping data and its aim is to make the data collected more sensible and to highlight vital features, findings or messages.

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The analysis and presentation of qualitative data is among the most challenging aspects in qualitative research and for researchers who are new to this method this could be a very challenging process once data has been collected.

In this paper two approaches to analyzing qualitative data have been discussed even though each of them can be tackled in many different ways; the deductive approach and the inductive approach (Spencer et al, 2004). In the deductive method a structured or predetermined framework is used to analyze data where the researcher may impose their own theory or structure on the data and utilizes this to analyze the transcripts with the interviews (Spencer et al, 2004). The deductive approach is best used when the researcher is already informed about the probable responses of the participants. Although this method is quick and easy it can be potentially inflexible and cause the whole analysis process to be biased because the coding process has been decided in advance and this can very much limit the development of the whole theory.