Data analysis

Question 1

What is the content analysis?

Belongs to positivism and can be a survey research.

Answer 1

A deductive approach. You can test an hypothesis (your chosen model) with this. You first have to chose a model before you will collect the data. Pre-established set of criteria of selection.

You want to know whether concepts of your model/hypothesis also exist in the data that you gathered. You want to now how many times they exist in the data.

If deviant cases are found, you can do 1 of the 2 things:
- expand your model/hypothesis
- choose another model/hypothesis

Question 2

What is the thematic analysis?

Answer 2

Inductive and interpretative

While content analysis provides a direct representation of participants responses, the thematic analysis provides an interpretation of participants meanings.

Themes arise from the data. A theme becomes inportant when it captures something important in relation to the overall research question.

Meaning arises from the data. Try to find out what participants mean. Often with the help of theory for sensitizing concepts in the topic list.

Question 3

What is the grounded theory?

Answer 3

Really inductive and open. Also iterative process. The process of analysis is:

1. Open coding, the disaggregation of the data into units
2. Axial coding, recognizing relationships between categories
3. Selective coding, the integration of categories to produce a theory

Question 4

What is the narrative analysis?

Answer 4

An ideal of capturing the lived experiences of participants.

More holistic data right from the start. The text is viewed within the context and social situation in which it is created.

Narratives can be used to explain contradictions, confusions and complexities of certain phenomena.

In the context of research within organizational settings, narratives bring forth a variety of perspectives and viewpoints, some of which may contradict and contest each other.

Question 5

What is the conversational analysis?

Answer 5

Formal analysis of everyday conversations. Seeks to specify the formal principles and mechanisms with which participants express themselves in social interactions.

Primarily the analysis of natural texts (transcriped tape recordings).

Not so much analysis of the language, but more the analysis of social interaction such as ‘turn taking’ or ‘opening up closings’, interruptions etc.

Through turn by turn analysis and the description of conversations, the researcher is able to sense how social order among participants is accomplished.

Question 6

What is the discours analysis?

Answer 6

How both spoken and written language are used in social contexts.

In contrast to content analysis, discours analysis rejects the view that language is a transparent medium which merely reflects reality.

Analysis becomes focused on recognizing the regularities in language in terms of patterns and repertoires.

These repertoirs do not emanate from the individual as such, but are embedded in culturally and socially constructed situations.

Question 7

What are pitfalls of:
- deductive approach
- indecutive approach

Answer 7

Deductive
You could be close minded because you are looking too much for evidence for relations. This way you may overlook things.

Inductive
You may accept vague relationships as the truth too soon.

Question 8

When analysing data, you need to do both horizontal anlysis and vertical analysis. What does this mean?

Answer 8

Horizontal analysis
Focus on comparisson of data across different interviews. Pay attention to diversity.

Vertical analysis
Focus on onderstanding the essence of the individual interviews. You need the unique line of arguing of individuals and their priorities.