Chapter 4 Analyses: Qualitative

You have completed your interviews and maintained your field notes, the next step is to do the transcriptions. If you can do the transcriptions as you go, all the better! You should include every utterance of the interviewee, including umms, laughter, etc. Incorporate your field notes and observations into the transcription (e.g., subject head down, begins to cry). The transcription is the most time consuming aspect, in my opinion.  

You now have a ton of information from all of your interviews- what do you do with it? First, I suggest reading through all of your interviews several times. Think about them as you read them, what are the people saying? What are they NOT saying? Sometimes, what they avoid discussing is as interesting as what they do say. Try to put yourself in their place; you want to understand what their life is like. 

Once you have a good feel for the data, the next step is to begin the analysis. There are a number of software programs available, such as Nvivo and Qualrus, but I am going to recommend a low tech method that I generally use. In this method a matrix or table is used in word. Picture a table as shown below for each interview question. Each person’s response is copied into the table. You then carefully read each response and develop the coding for each one. As you do this, questions to ask yourself: What are the key points that are mentioned? What is the underlying emotions associated with the response? You will want to go through this process several times. The first time, use the participants' words in the codes. Then go through again and think about larger concepts that are present in different people's responses- can you find an overarching code?

 

Sub#	What is your earliest memory?	coding
101	I remember my grandmother being sick, she had cancer. She passed away. I remember crying. It was summer time. I remember seeing her in her bed, not moving, with her eyes closed. I was with my mom.
102	I remember my grandmother holding me in her arms with a polka dot cap. I remember her holding me in her arms, rocking me, trying to get me to go to sleep. The look in her eyes of happiness and content, of having me there as she rocked me to sleep with her polka dot night cap. I remember vaguely maybe the TV being on, maybe the news. I remember an air conditioner in the wall going.
103	I was sitting at a table eating a sandwich and my mom was singing a song to me. It was a song I enjoyed her singing to me – I enjoyed the song and it made me feel comforted. I was focused on my mom’s voice and hearing the story in the song.

 

What coding would you give for each of the examples above? Try it and then see if yours are similar to mine (at the end of this post). It is always a good idea to have someone else independently code the responses and compare yours to theirs. For any that you differ on, try to reach a compromise. You might see if anyone in your dissertation class is at similar place in his or her dissertation process and would be willing to trade coding checks. If not, check with your committee member- perhaps they know another student who might work. Note that if you go this route, the person should sign a confidentiality agreement which will need to be submitted to the IRB along with a change of procedure including them.

Once the coding is complete, the next step is to look for similarities across your interviews based up on the coding; these similarities are called themes. Were there any themes in the examples presented above (of course your data will have more people, 3 people do not make up a theme)? I have listed two possible ones at the end of this post. 

Once themes are determined, the next step is to begin writing up c. 4, data analysis. You will want to give your themes and provide examples of quotes illustrating them. Follow the qualitative checklist for how the chapter is to be arranged. 

Next time we will look at the mixed method analyses. 

My coding and themes

101- grandmother, death, visual imagery, with mother, crying (negative emotion)

102- grandmother, visual imagery, auditory, empathy (recognizing other's emotions)

103- mom, eating, auditory imagery, feelings of comfort

Themes: female relative, visual and auditory imagery