Qualitative data analysis

Coding as you go along, and starting at a relatively early stage, can be very helpful for those who want to build a grounded theory. This is because it forces you to interpret your data and focus your ideas from the start, which in turn helps you to choose an appropriate sample of participants for the next stage of data collection. Qualitative data is typically quite voluminous, so the researcher can easily feel overcome by its sheer size. Coding the data from the outset helps to give the researcher some feeling of being on top of things.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 581

One of the problems with coding, identified by Coffey & Atkinson (1996), is that it involves extracting segments of data from their original context (e.g. an interview transcript), and so the researcher becomes less sensitive to what the data mean in relation to the narrative as a whole. It’s as if the coding process, itself, destroys the narrative. Coding is not analysis; it is a tool of analysis. It therefore requires great sensitivity to the data as a whole (in the sense of an entire interview, for example), so that it will not degenerate into a way of separating data chunks for easier (but less authentic) mechanical processing.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 583

Strauss & Corbin (1998, cited on page 576) distinguish between two main types of grounded theory, both of which are seen to emerge from the process of qualitative data analysis. A substantive theory is one that explains an empirical instance or specific area of study, which can then be tested in new settings, whereas a formal theory operates at a higher level of abstraction and applies to a wide range of phenomena, because data will have been collected in contrasting settings. A substantive theory may never be more than just that, but when a formal theory emerges, it applies to several substantive areas.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 576

Narrative analysis shifts the focus of attention from the content of people’s accounts to the structures, forms and mechanisms they use to construct them. This can involve studying either the “storied nature” of everyday life as recounted by participants, or the idea that life story data take the form of a jointly produced narrative that emerges from the interview as a situated encounter. It is, at least in part, a reaction to the coding problem (among others) of grounded theory research.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 589-593

The main tools of grounded theory are theoretical sampling, coding, theoretical saturation and constant comparisons between concepts and their indicators. Theoretical sampling is a process of gathering data from people (or texts) who are thought more likely to have data relevant to the general hypothesis and continuing until redundancy (theoretical saturation) sets in. The objective is to establish a general theory grounded in the empirical data, although, in practice, concepts are generalized more often than theory. External validity is concerned with the question of whether research results can be generalized to other groups who were not the focus of the research and is closely associated with quantitative research. Grounded theory attempts to develop a ‘substantive’ theory, which is then tested in settings other than that in which it was generated, so the concept of external validity is not relevant.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 573

Analytic induction (see Key concept 24.1, p571) involves generating a hypothetical explanation of the research question and then testing this out on a range of data. If just one deviant case is found, the researcher must either redefine the hypothesis so as to exclude the deviant case, or reformulate the hypothesis and proceed with the data collection. It is, therefore, “an extremely rigorous method of analysis” (p572).
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 571-572

Strauss & Corbin (1990, cited on page 574) refer to three types of coding: open, axial and selective. “Open coding” generally occurs in the initial stages of the research and involves examining the data in detail in order to generate a wide range of concepts, which can later be grouped into categories. “Axial coding” reassembles the data along new ‘axes’ and “selective coding” isolates the core category, the focus around which all other categories will be integrated.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 574

Memos can be used to assist the process of generating a grounded theory. Researchers write these notes to themselves, to remind themselves of any emerging ideas or concepts that they have observed as they read through the data. This can help the researcher to forge connections between categories of concepts, which in turn are used to formulate a theory. In “Research in focus 24.4” (on page 579), Bryman gives an example of a memo he wrote for a particular research study (Bryman et al. 1996). As can be seen, it is quite detailed, so “memos” should not be confused with “scratch notes”.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 579

It can be extremely illuminating to conduct a secondary analysis of a qualitative dataset and compare your interpretation to that of the original researcher. Furthermore, it is likely that qualitative datasets are under-explored because of their size and difficulty of handling. However, secondary analysis can be ethically problematic because the participants may not have given informed consent to their data being used by anyone other than the original researcher. It can also be difficult to maintain the levels of anonymity and confidentiality established in the original study.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 594

Bryman (p589) defines narrative analysis as ‘an approach to the elicitation and analysis of data that is sensitive to the sense of temporal sequence that people, as providers of accounts (often in the form of stories) about themselves or events by which they are affected, detect in their lives and surrounding episodes and inject into their accounts’. Broadly speaking, it is concerned with the forms and structures of sequence that people use to frame their ‘stories of experience’ and can be applied to primary or extant material.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 590