Narrative and Sequential Approaches to Content Data

1. Narrative and Sequential Approaches to Content Data Special Forms of Qualitative Analysis

2. Quantitative Analysis Logic Question is RELATION between VARIABLES • Assume independence and linear relation • Relations are between whole variables • Test hypotheses about variables • Find correlations between variables • Build from simple to complex models • Infer causation to invisible processes

3. Problems with this Approach • Variables are active; Actors are passive • Interactions between variables problematic • Categorical variables awkward • Difficulties handling time and sequences • Chops up experience and loses context

4. Narrative and Sequential Approaches • Ask different questions • Based on different kinds of theories • Think about data in different ways • Build logic from people and events • Treat each case as a holistic story

5. When Narrative & Sequential Methods Fit • Theory and research question • Are you studying a process? • Are you studying interaction sequences? • Are you studying sequential patterns or forms? • Does the data tell a “story” • Action unfolds over time or sequentially • Sequence or unfolding is of interest • Factors at each point might affect outcome • Start with natural complexity and simplify

6. What story does each case tell Are there similar patterns to these stories? • Is there an internal sequence or order? • How much can the sequence vary? • Do clusters of features appear together? • When in the sequence do they appear? • Do clusters affect outcome? • Is there an interaction process? • Who interacts and how? • Does the interaction have a sequence?

7. Several Different Approaches Andrew Abbott: sequential analysis, optimal matching David Heise: event sequence analysis (ETHNO, ESA) Roberto Franzosi: narrative analysis, graphing networks Charles Ragin: qualitative comparative analysis

8. Abbott’s Optimal Matching • Designed to study “careers” • Uses metric methods from biology • Data are simple lists of sequential events • Calculate “optimal match” between lists • How many changes are needed • To convert one sequence into another? • Only works for straight linear sequences • Programs exist to do the matching

9. Heise’s Event Sequence Analysis • Codes sequence of events within a case • Work from narrative to event sequence • Construct one sequence from many sources • Or compare sequences from different sources • Program diagrams the sequence for you • Free Online Program, also can download • ESA Website http://www.indiana.edu/~socpsy/ESA/

10. My Use of ESA to Compare Accounts

11. Code properties of each event • Properties to be Coded (Event Frame): • Actions, Objects, Instruments, • Alignments, Settings, Products, • Beneficiaries, Action associations • Very labor intensive, forces attention • Reveals associations within events • Can also do this in Access • ESA does it for “events” within one sequence • Program produces simple text files to save work

12. Franzosi’s Narrative Analysis • Similar to Heise conceptually • Uses “semantic grammar” to code narratives • subject-action-object, plus modifiers • adapts categories to type of data • grammar defines relation between codes • Then analyzes the sets of relations • recodes categories to reduce detail • graphs major sets to show interaction patterns

13. Applications of Franzosi • Labor-intensive coding from narratives • Uses any relational database to store data • Works with complex narratives or many cases • Power is because • data unit is one “semantic triplet” with modifiers • coded data contains “grammatical” structure • preserves relationships between elements • large dataset permits quantification of patterns • strong relations can be diagrammed as networks

14. Ragin’s QCA • Method for qualitative comparisons • Used to build and test qualitative theory • Based on comparison of a set of cases • Works with words and concepts, not numbers • Can be small N, analyzes across cases • Uses logic to find configuration patterns • Then tests possibilities with clear criteria • To produce verbal equations ethnic political mobilization=large*growing + fluent*wealthy

15. How Procedure Works • Select a set of comparative cases for the study • Identify configurations of properties in the cases • Create a matrix of all possible configurations (+/-) • Identify which configurations exist, assign cases • Assign outcome variable to cases by configuration • Reduce configurations to logical minimum • criterion is “sufficiency” of elements in the configuration • strict requirement for small N • probabilistic with exact probability test for more cases • Express results in equation form • Build theoretical explanation from the findings