Enyaga - 2021 Rm2 - Qualitative Data Analysis

RESEARCH METHODS2
QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
Mrs Nyaga W.E

Qualitative data analysis
Qualitative data analysis involves the;

identification,
examination, and
interpretation of
patterns and themes in
textual data and
determines how these patterns and themes help answer
the research questions at hand hence achieving the study objectives.
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Qualitative data analysis refers to textual data. This is non-numeric
data that is expressed in the forms of:
 Discussions
 Explanations
 Documentations
 Reports
 Conversations
 Transcriptions.
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 Qualitative analysis involves ;
evaluating,
classifying, or coding,
summarizing and
interrelating categories of textual data
in order to derive explanations about specific social-oriented issues.
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 The basic considerations in qualitative data analysis are that:
 It is conducted via prolonged and intensive interaction with a ‘field’ or
real life situation.
 The situation specifies natural settings of individuals, groups, societies
and organizations or institutions.
 The researcher makes an attempt to secure a holistic overview of the
context of the study.
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 The data is detailed and reflects the perceptions of the actors’, which
emphasizes empathy.
 To carry out Qualitative Analysis based on the above consideration
you need to:
Read through the textual data collected
Organize according to research questions/objectives/hypothesis
Isolate certain themes/words/ideas
Keep track where they are located
Code, interpret, compare with literature and
Present the data
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 The critical test is to determine how the participants
understand, account for, act and manage their day-to-day
situations (Miles and Huberman, 1994).
 In simpler terms the analysis is textual.
 In this way, words are put together, classified into logical
thematic categories and coded.
 The researcher compares and contrasts the patterns of
emerging themes in order to develop conclusions or
interpretations:
 This involves Thematic Analysis.
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Thee simultaneous flows of operations in thematic analysis are
compared, namely;
 Data Reduction
 Data Display
 Conclusion Drawing/Verification
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Components of Qualitative Data Analysis.
In Data reduction;
your activity involves selecting, focusing and
simplifying the data from the field.
This helps in developing themes.
You begin to sharpen, sort, and organize data to permit conclusions
and verifications.
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Data display: In this activity, you will need to;
display a systematic summary of textual information that

facilitates conclusion drawing and the necessary action.
This may involve matrices, graphs, charts or networks.
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Conclusion drawing and verification
At this stage, you will need to develop:
 Patterns, explanations, causal flows and propositions,
 Relations to research questions or theories are made.
 Results that are grounded on questions or theory.
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Activity
This exercise is designed to give you an opportunity to experience data

categorization for data reduction and data display. The data was obtained
from an interview. The responses are transcribed in Table 1.20
 The statements are responses obtained from interviews of a sample of staff
and students on a one-year initial teacher training PGCE course.
 The item examined “staff and students attitudes towards the way they
acquired knowledge on the course offered”.
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The responses were recorded in one common sheet of paper
as follows: This transfer of data from the instruments to the
common record sheet is called transcriptions.
NB: Responses can be keyed into the computer directly instead of

using books/papers.
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 Table 1.20. Transcribed textual data (data display)
Respo Response
ndent
N0.
1 I wanted them to get into the library.
2 We give you assignments because we need to assess you.
3 I went into school and told the teacher that I was doing these lesson plans
and he said, ‘Hey, see mine!’ And in fact his was three words – Teach
physiology, afternoon’, So they’re not really that useful.
4 We give you work because we think it will do you some good.
5 My journal’s awful. I pity who’s got to read it. I just wrote down what
happened at school.
6 Quite frankly, I don’t think we’ve been given that much time for reading at all, I
05/17/2023 think that’s a real problem.
Table 1.21 demonstrates the data reduction process. It shows the
categorization indicating the conclusions the researcher arrived at.
Table 1.21 Data reduction (categorization)

STAFF: 1, 2, 4
STUDENTS: 3,5,6
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Then putting STAFF and STUDENTS into various categories, we get
Table 1.21
Categories Staff Students
Assessment 2, 4, -
Teaching practice (journals) - 3, 5
Teaching practice (work) - -
Reading (library) 1 6
Reading (general) - -
Confidentiality - -
The categories in column one represent the major themes that the researcher found to emerge
from the data. Column two and three represent the units of analysis who were the staff and
students, respectively. This is associated with the information they gave, as shown in Table 1.20
above
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Activity
Examine carefully the categorized data in Table 1.21 Using information in Table
1.20 develop your interpretations and conclusions by answering the following
questions.
Interpretations: the following questions would assist in developing
interpretations.
 What are the attitudes of teachers and students towards assessment?
 What were students’ attitudes towards teaching practice?
 What were students’ attitudes towards reading?
 What is student’s perception about confidentiality?
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Conclusions: Can be drawn by determining possible relationships
between themes/categories. Some useful questions to ask are:
Are there any relationships between?
 Assessment and teaching practice?
 Assessment and reading?
 Teaching practice and reading?
 Confidentiality and assessment?
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Activity
 Discuss the relationship between the themes to draw
conclusions.
 After developing your interpretations and conclusions, you
then
 need to establish how they address your research
questions.
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Role of objectives and research questions in data analysis
 Research objectives are the goals to be achieved by a study or

project,
 They affect every part of the proposed study;
from the selection of the topic to the final report
 They should be clear cut, well defined statements to help you make a
deep investigation…
 Research questions assist in achieving the goal;
It is what you want to understand by doing the research
 The design of the research revolves around the research question,
It explains what your study will try to learn.
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 Research questions help to
1. Focus the study
2. Give guidance on how to conduct it
3. Form the sub-sections of Chapter Four
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4.0 CHAPTER FOUR
 It is titled Results
 Divided into sub-sections according to the research questions
 Make declarative statements from the research question
 The report should present the data fully, including adequate
interpretation related to the research questions
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4.1. Introduction
 In this section, the purpose of the study is restated briefly.
 Give an overview of the chapter

4.2 Data presentation and interpretation
 The research questions are stated as well as the data techniques used
to investigate each question.
 This section is divided into sub-sections according to the research

questions. Eg, one subsection may be;
4.2.1 Influence of Gender on Attitude to
Teaching
 The research question is restated, eg
 The first research question was,
“Does gender influence attitudes to teaching?”.
To answer this question descriptive analysis was carried out using
frequencies and means. Results of the analysis are presented in the
(following) table 4.1………..
Table 4.1: Mean attitude scores for male and
female students
Gender No of Total of attitude Mean attitude
respondents score score
Male 234 5228 ?
Female 121 4763 ?
Total 355 9991 ?

Results presented in the table are restated in narrative form, and the research question will be presented
Eg
 Female students scored higher in the attitude questionnaire with a
mean of 39.36, than their male colleagues who scored a mean of
22.34.
 Therefore gender has an influence on attitude to teaching
Interpret the findings
 Interpretation should be done within the frame of reference of the

research.
 It is an attempt to convey meaning of findings to the reader.
 Give possible reasons why results occurred like this.
 Fit the results into findings by other researchers mentioned in the
review of literature
Eg
 Female students may have a more positive attitude than

male students because of encouragement to join profession
by family and community. On the other hand male students
may have the unproven notion that teaching is not a
masculine job as compared to others like engineering. This
is inline with findings by Sifuna, 1999 who showed that
background factors like gender had a strong influence on
choice of the teaching profession by trainees.
Repeat the same process for other R/Q
 Results and interpretations for other research questions are presented
in the same format in the other sub-sections ie 4.2.2
 4.2.3
 4.2.4 etc
Conclusion
 You have to note that data analysis is the bridge between data
collected and the results generated in the study.
 If your data analysis is flawed then your interpretations and findings
will be inaccurate or not valid.
 Data analysis, however, is not a sufficient condition for development
of results or findings.
 Interpretation of this data must be done objectively and carefully to
provide useful meanings of the results of the analysis.
05/17/2023

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RESEARCH METHODS2

QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS

Mrs Nyaga W.E

Qualitative data analysis involves the;

display a systematic summary of textual information that

This exercise is designed to give you an opportunity to experience data

NB: Responses can be keyed into the computer directly instead of

Table 1.21 Data reduction (categorization)

Teaching practice (journals) - 3, 5

Teaching practice (work) - -

 Research objectives are the goals to be achieved by a study or

 In this section, the purpose of the study is restated briefly.

 Give an overview of the chapter

 This section is divided into sub-sections according to the research

Male 234 5228 ?

Female 121 4763 ?

Total 355 9991 ?

 Interpretation should be done within the frame of reference of the

 Female students may have a more positive attitude than

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