Discuss the major challenges at each stage of a field research project.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The most typical steps that are shared by most approaches to qualitative data analysis include
• documentation of the data and the process of data collection;
• organization or categorization of the data into concepts;
• connection of the data to show how one concept may influence another;
• corroboration or legitimization by evaluating alternative explanations, challenging validity, and searching for negative cases; and
• representing the account (reporting the findings).
The analysis of qualitative research notes begins while interviewing or as early as the researcher enters the field; researchers identify problems and concepts that appear likely to help in understanding the situation. Simply reading the notes or transcripts is an important step in the analytic process. Researchers should make frequent notes in the margins to identify important statements and to propose ways of coding the data.
An interim stage may consist of listing the concepts reflected in the notes and diagramming the relationships among concepts (Maxwell, 1996). In a large project, weekly team meetings are an important part of this process. Susan Miller (1999) described this process in her study of NPOs. Miller’s research team members met both to go over their field notes and to resolve points of confusion as well as to dialogue with other skilled researchers who helped to identify emerging concepts.
This process continues throughout the project and should assist in refining concepts during the report-writing phase, long after data collection has ceased. Let us examine each of the stages of qualitative research in more detail.
Documentation
The first formal analytical step is documentation. The various contacts, interviews, written documents, and whatever it is that preserves a record of what happened must all be saved and listed. Documentation is critical to qualitative research for several reasons: It is essential for keeping track of what will become a rapidly growing volume of notes, tapes, and documents; it provides a way of developing an outline for the analytic process; and it encourages ongoing conceptualizing and strategizing about the text.
What to do with all this material? Many field research projects have slowed to a halt because a novice researcher becomes overwhelmed by the quantity of information that has been collected. A one-hour interview can generate 20 to 25 pages of single-spaced text (Kvale, 1996). Analysis is less daunting, however, if the researcher maintains a disciplined transcription schedule.
Making Sense of It: Conceptualization, Coding, and Categorizing
Identifying and refining important concepts is a key part of the iterative process of qualitative research. Sometimes conceptualizing begins with a simple observation that is interpreted directly, pulled apart, and then put back together more meaningfully. Stake (1995) provides an example: “More often, analytic insights are tested against new observations, the initial statement of problems and concepts is refined, the researcher then collects more data, interacts with the data again, and the process continues” (p. 75).
Jody Miller (2000) provides an excellent illustration of the developmental process of conceptualization in her study of girls in gangs:
I paid close attention to and took seriously respondents’ reactions to themes raised in interviews, particularly instances in which they “talked back” by labeling a topic irrelevant, pointing out what they saw as misinterpretations on my part, or offering corrections. In my research, the women talked back the most in response to my efforts to get them to articulate how gender inequality shaped their experiences in the gang. Despite stories they told to the contrary, many maintained a strong belief in their equality within the gang.... As the research progressed, I also took emerging themes back to respondents in subsequent interviews to see if they felt I had gotten it right. In addition to conveying that I was interested in their perspectives and experiences, this process also proved useful for further refining my analyses. (p. 30)
The process described in this quote illustrates the reflexive nature of qualitative data collection and analysis. In qualitative research, the collection of data and their analysis are not typically separate activities. This excerpt shows how the researcher first was alerted to a concept by observations in the field, then refined her understanding of this concept by investigating its meaning. By observing the concept’s frequency of use, she came to realize its importance.
Examining Relationships and Displaying Data
Examining relationships is the centerpiece of the analytic process, because it allows the researcher to move from simple description of the people and settings to explanations of why things happened as they did with those people in that setting. The process of examining relationships can be captured in a matrix that shows how different concepts are connected or perhaps what causes are linked with what effects.
Exhibit 8.7 provides an excellent example of a causal model developed by Baskin and Sommers (1998) to explain the desistance process for the sample of violent female offenders they interviewed in the state of New York. They described the process for the women who made it out of their lives of crime as follows:
Desistance is a process as complex and lengthy as the process of initial involvement. It was interesting to find that some of the key concepts in initiation of deviance—social bonding, differential association, deterrence, age—were equally important in the process of desistance. We see the aging offender take the threat of punishment seriously, reestablish links with conventional society and sever associations with subcultural street elements. We found, too, that the decision to give up crime was triggered by a shock of some sort that was followed by a period of crisis. They arrived at a point at which the deviant way of life seemed senseless.
Corroboration and Authenticating Conclusions
No set standards exist for evaluating the validity or authenticity of conclusions in a qualitative study, but the need to consider carefully the evidence and methods on which conclusions are based is just as great as with other types of research. Data can be assessed in terms of at least three criteria (Becker, 1958):
• How credible was the informant? Were statements made by someone with whom the researcher had a relationship of trust or by someone the researcher had just met? Did the informant have reason to lie? If the statements do not seem to be trustworthy as indicators of actual events, can they at least be used to help understand the informant’s perspective?
• Were statements made in response to the researcher’s questions or were they spontaneous? Spontaneous statements are more likely to indicate what would have been said had the researcher not been present.
• How does the presence or absence of the researcher or the researcher’s informant influence the actions and statements of other group members? Reactivity to being observed can never be ruled out as a possible explanation for some directly observed social phenomena. However, if the researcher carefully compares what the informant says goes on when the researcher is not present, what the researcher observes directly, and what other group members say about their normal practices, the extent of reactivity can be assessed to some extent.
A qualitative researcher’s conclusions should be assessed by their ability to provide a credible explanation for some aspect of social life. That explanation should capture group members’ tacit knowledge of the social processes that were observed, not just their verbal statements about these processes. Tacit knowledge, “the largely unarticulated, contextual understanding that is often manifested in nods, silences, humor, and naughty nuances,” is reflected in participants’ actions as well as their words and in what they fail to state but nonetheless feel deeply and even take for granted (Altheide & Johnson, 1994. These features are evident in Whyte’s (1955) analysis of Cornerville social patterns.