Analyzing Qualitative Data

1. Analyzing Qualitative Data Elizabeth Boyd, Ph.D. EPI 240

2. After the Interview • You’ve interviewed 10 (or 20, or 30, or 100) people, now what? • Transcription • Coding • Analysis

3. Transcription • Written representation of the interview • Types of transcription: • “Cleansed” transcript • “Just the words” • “Jeffersonian” transcript

4. The “cleansed” transcript • Dr. E: I’m deputy editor of Annals of Internal Medicine. I was associate editor from 1978 to 1999, and I was deputy editor from 1999 to 2003. My sub-specialty is pulmonary disease which I practice every day at the University of Pennsylvania. Most of the editors at Annals do practice, though not as extensively as I do. …

5. “Just the words” • IR: So today is March seventh. I’m at Annals of Internal Medicine and I’ll be interviewing Dr. P.E. And for the record can you state your name and position? • DrE: It’s P.E. I’m deputy editor of Annals of Internal Medicine. • IR: Okay. And how long have you been working at Annals? • DrE: Since 1978. It’s a long time. I was associate editor from 1978 to 1999 and I’ve been deputy editor from 1999 to 2003.

6. “Jeffersonian” transcript • IR: So: today is March seventh, I’m at Annals of Internal Medicine and I’ll be interviewing doctor Pete Ernest. (0.4) A::nd um for the record can you state your name and position? • IE: It’s Pete Ernest, I’m deputy editor of Annals of Internal Medicine. • IR: Okay. And how long have you been working at Annals? • (0.4) • IE: Since nineteen seventy eight. It’s a lo::ng time. I was uh:: associate editor from nineteen seventy eight t nineteen ninety ni:ne, …

7. Which transcription method to use? • Speed versus detail and accuracy • What are you most interested in learning -- • Content? • Narrative? • Interaction?/Context?

8. Coding • Goal: To link specific quotes to analytic concepts and categories • Some categories precede interviews • Based on assumptions, literature • Others emerge from data itself • Unexpected observations, new insights • Coding categories evolve through your interactions with the data

9. Coding: First steps • Codes should stick closely to the data • Preserve words/phrases • Preserve events • Portray viewpoints • Suggest contexts

10. Sample transcript … DR: All righty. Are you taking your medicine? PT: Nope. DR: No? Why not? PT: Well, it’s a long story. DR: Tell me. I am interested in that long story. PT: All right- First of all, when I got the prescription, I recognized these pills as those little things I took years ago from my other doctor, and they didn’t work. I thought, well, maybe now. My system’s changed, maybe they’ll work this time. So I tried them. They didn’t. DR: Uh, what do you mean it didn’t? PT: I get uh very depressed and uh I wake up at night and my head is a real roaring mass -- sounds like a boiler factory, the noise is terrific. DR: Well that pill wasn’t for your boiler factory, that pill was for your blood pressure. PT: Well, I don’t know, but this is the- DR: Do you mean that the pill had that effect on you? PT: Yes, I wake up with a sweat. I didn’t drop them altogether, but I took like one every other day, and I finished the prescription, and I- DR: Now, when you took it every other day, did it give you that trouble at night?

11. PT: It still, uh, .. Well, felt like I should take something to control my pressure, so once in a while I‘ll have a guilt feeling and take a pill. And then I took a couple from my husband’s bottle, you know, he had the same. So, he was taking the medicine, I was taking the medicine, my son was taking the same medicine. I’ve had - DR: What’s he taking the same medicine for? PT: For pressure -- and I figured, well, one of us, we’re gonna start looking for uh weapons, uh, who’s gonna take the gun, who’s gonna take the knife - DR: Well, you’re all having the same reaction to it? PT: We’re all upset. So I stopped taking them, and then my husband called, you said he could stop, and then my son stopped them. DR: Now nobody’s taking them. PR: Mm- DR: How’s everybody’s blood pressure, eh? PT: (Laughing) I don’t know; I don’t take it. From: Eric J. Cassell. Taking with Patients, Volume 1: The Theory of Doctor-Patient Communication.

12. Coding: Initial phase • Naming each line, segment • Open-mind; avoid preconceptions • Look for ACTIONS as well as topics • Allow new ideas to emerge • Codes are provisional • Use gerunds to characterize -- • “reporting” “naming” “complaining” “mourning” etc. • “In vivo” codes: retaining the Ss words, phrases

13. How to avoid imposing preconceptions on data • Achieve intimate knowledge of your data • Understand how your respondents understand • Don’t take for granted that you know/understand what your respondents are telling you • Specify how your concepts help you understand your data

14. How to avoid imposing preconceptions on data • If extant concepts do not add substance to your analysis, are not integral to your understanding, do not use them for the sake of using them. • Recognize and reflect upon your own preconceived categories • Whenever you want to say, “It is x,” ask “how, why is it so?”

15. Beginning analysis • After initial coding, your analysis becomes selective, directed, and more conceptually motivated • Select analytic categories of interest • Compare across interviewees and observations • Elaborate and expand each category • Find boundary cases, deviant cases, typical cases

16. Analysis • Final stage involves explaining how codes/categories may relate to one another -- formulating hypotheses, integrating into theory • Looking for causes, contingencies, consequences, covariances, and conditions

17. A note on causality • Causal relationships in qualitative data: • A description of a visualizable sequence of events, with each event clearly leading to the next • Description must be more than plausible -- it must be thorough and systematic

18. References • Charmaz, Kathy. Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide Through Qualitative Analysis. Sage Publications. 2006.