REPORTING DATA AND WRITING

A QUALITATIVE REPORT

Dr NORLIZA KUSHAIRI 1

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH:

CONCEPT OVERVIEW

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1. Naturalistic

2. Descriptive Data

3. Concern With Process

4. Inductive

5. Meaning

Features of Qualitative Research

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• Context-dependent

• Actions are understood within settings

• Circumstances are important

Qualitative Research is…

Naturalistic

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• Narrative form of reporting is common and quotations are used to illustrate & substantiate

• Data includes interviews, fieldnotes, photographs, video footage, personal documents, memos, etc.

Qualitative Research has…

Descriptive Data

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• Process is just as, or more, important than outcomes or products

• Attention to how meaning is derived and how labels come to be applied and how assumptions are made

Qualitative Research is…

Concerned With Process

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• Theories develop from the bottom up rather than the top down

• The direction you will travel comes after you have been collecting data & spent time with the participants

• “You are not putting together a puzzle whose picture you already know”

• Use parts of the study to learn what the important questions are

Qualitative Research is…

Inductive

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• Participant perspectives are important

• Accuracy of interpretations can be checked with the participants

• Interplay or dialogue between researchers and participants

Qualitative Research is…

Meaningful

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Reporting

and Writing a

Qualitative

Research

Thesis

A qualitative study is not complete until the research report is written

Researcher analyzes data and writes the analysis in back-and-forth reflective steps

Writing the report is part of developing the interpretation of the data

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Characteristics

of Qualitative

Research

Reports

Author is a guide:

Helping the reader move through unfamiliar interaction

Helping the reader see familiar interaction in a new way

Does description and analysis increase readers’ understanding of how humans construct and share meaning?

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Parts of the

Qualitative

Research

Report

• Introduction

• Summary of the literature

• Description of data collection and analytical techniques

• Report of the interpretation and analyses

• Implications of findings

• Future research

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Highlighting key differences in qualitative reports

Differences in emphasis (compared with quant reports)

-- Title

-- Introduction

-- Methodology

-- Appendices

Differences in structure (compared with quant reports)

-- Findings

-- Discussion

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Title

• Can be apparently stated in the title that the research reported will be qualitative.

• contain words (such as ‘narratives’, ‘accounts’, ‘personal meanings’, ‘lifeworlds’, ‘discourses’, ‘views and experiences’, ‘social/media representations’, ‘social construction’, ‘positioning’, etc.)

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Title

• Good practice to explicitly indicate in a title that a qualitative methodology is used, as that might be of particular interest (or disinterest) to potential readers. It also makes the task of literature searching by methodology more efficient.

• While keeping the title as short as possible, inclusion of phrases such as ‘a qualitative/ ‘a phenomenological’/ ‘a grounded theory’/ ‘a conversation-analytic’ investigation/study/inquiry’ in the title (or subtitle) is regarded as helpful information.

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Useful sub-sections for Methodology

Design

Participants

Methodological theory

Method of data collection

Procedure

Ethical considerations

Analytic strategy

Reflexivity

(but generally not Materials/ Apparatus)

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Reflexivity sub-section

This is increasingly considered to be a criterion for the evaluation of qualitative research – perhaps a qualitative parallel to quantitative considerations of validity and reliability, and seen to be a means of increasing the transparency of the research process.

This sub-section should therefore demonstrate an understanding of the role of reflexivity in qualitative research (again with references such as Willig, 2008) and explain the procedures for it in the present study.

Writing style – breaking ‘the rules’?

The writing style of a qualitative report is generally the same as with quantitative reports and other academic work (i.e., writing in an indirect style or reporting in the past tense).

But writing in a more personal way, using ‘I’, is congruent with owning one’s position

So it is advisable to use first person forms where appropriate and (in student work) to state one’s intention to do this (e.g., when discussing reflexivity).

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• Introductory premise to frame what follows

• Provide explanations

Why researcher was in this particular setting

Why this setting is important or interesting

• Begin with dramatic quote or field note

• Or, begin with more traditional literature review

Presenting the Core Idea or Question

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Writing

about the

Method

• When/where the fieldwork was conducted

• Extent of researcher involvement in the interaction environment

• Detailed information about the participants, context, and scene

• Steps and methods for analyzing the data

• Extent to which data were triangulated

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Revealing Identity of

Participants

• Keep your agreement about confidentiality and anonymity with participants

• May need to develop fictitious names

• Sometimes must go beyond simply changing name of people, place, and organization

• But do not camouflage an identity so that it is misleading

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‘Giving people a voice by using their spoken words was also a way of demonstrating the value of what they said (Constas, 1992)’.

Method-reporting-deficit:

Qualitative researchers make all sorts of choices in creating our research studies and methods, and that for the most part, we are not very good at sharing these decisions, and the rationales for these choices in our presentations of our work (Chenail, 1995)

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Presenting the Data

• Because qualitative research produces abundant data –need to judiciously edit data to a manageable amount

• Decide what to tell and how to tell it

• What is the basic story?

• Who will do the telling?

• Authorial voice?

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Example of data analysis-

thematic coding, matrices etc

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• Openness

• Data as Star

• Juxtaposition

• Data Presentation Strategies

Things to consider when presenting

the data

Data presentation

(article)

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Openness

..”to consider the other in the process at all times and make it a priority that you present as much of the "back stage" information of your research as possible. By back stage I mean that you communicate as clearly as you can what it was that you did to create your project, what were your choices along the way, what else did you consider doing in the project but chose not to do. Get clear with yourself what it is that you are doing at every point along the way of doing your project. Note it and present it to your readers. Even if what you were doing was intuitive guessing, let the reader in on it “ (Chenail, 1994).

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Openness

“two reasons: One, this will allow your readers to judge the validity of your efforts. After having been presented both the process and the results of the analysis, readers are in a much better position to see if they can see what you were seeing or at least accept that your take on the data was a valid one.

Two, by re-presenting plenty of the data, you will also allow the reader to see what they can see in the data. It is a way to "share the wealth" and to invite another to continue the inquiry and conversation (Chenail, 1994).

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Juxtaposition

Juxtaposition is also the key to producing a quality presentation or paper. To do so, you have to juxtapose data excerpts with your talk about the data. Be it in the presentation of categories, themes, taxonomies, typologies, pictures, or drawings, the essence of presenting qualitative research comes down to how well you are able to juxtapose the data with your descriptions, explanations, analysis, or commentaries.

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Juxtaposition

Also involved in this juxtaposition of data and talk about the data is how you choose to use "the literature" in this weave.

• Do you annotate the data by citing relevant previous studies or theoretical pieces?

• Do you contrast the data you have collected with what has been previously said in the literature about similar data?

• Do you use the data to guide you to areas in the literature you had not previously considered?

• Do you triangulate your data with the literature as way of validating your observations?

In all of these choices, juxtaposition is still the central concern!

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Juxtaposition

In this process of juxtaposition, your emphasis should be on staying close to the data. The true art of presenting qualitative research is to be restrained by your data. Don't overstate the data and don't understate it as well. Keep the whole process as simple as possible: Look at the data and record that what you see-- Report nothing more and nothing less! If you keep to that aesthetic, your data will help to support the validity of your analysis and your analysis will help to feature the richness of your data.

Movie….

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Data Presentation Strategies

Natural - The data are presented in a shape that resembles the phenomenon being studied. For instance, if the data are excerpts from a therapy session, present them in a sequential order or in an order that re-presents the flow of the session itself.

Most Simple to Most Complex - For sake of understanding, start the presentation of data with the simplest example you have found. As the complexity of each example or exemplar presented increases, the reader will have a better chance of following the presentation. Erving Goffman's work is a good example of this style.

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First Discovered/Constructed to Last Discovered/Constructed - The data are presented in a chronicle-like fashion, showing the course of the researcher's personal journey in the study. This style is reminiscent of an archeological style of presentation: What was the first "relic" excavated, then the second and so forth.

Quantitative-Informed - In this scheme data are presented according to strategies commonly found in quantitative or statistical studies. Data are arranged along lines of central tendencies and ranges, clusters, and frequencies.

Data Presentation Strategies

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Theory-Guided - Data arrangement is governed by the researcher's theory or theories regarding the phenomenon being re-presented in the study. For instance, a Marxist-informed researcher might present data from a doctor-patient interview in terms of talk which shows who controls the means for producing information in the interaction, talk which illustrates who is being marginalized, and so forth. In clinical qualitative research, this approach is quite prevalent as clinicians organize the data in terms of their understandings of how doctor-patient, or nurse-patient, and therapist-client interact.

Data Presentation Strategies

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Narrative Logic - Data are arranged with an eye for storytelling. Researchers plot out the data in a fashion which allows them to transition from one exemplar to another just as narrators arrange details in order to best relate the particulars of the story.

Most Important to Least Important or From Major to Minor - Like the journalistic style of the inverted pyramid, the most important "findings" are presented first and the minor "discoveries" come last.

Data Presentation Strategies

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Dramatic Presentation - This one is the opposite of the inverted pyramid style. With the dramatic arrangement scheme, researchers order their data presentation so as to save the surprises and unforeseen discoveries for last.

No Particular Order Order - As it sounds, data are arranged with no particular, conscious pattern in mind, or the researcher fails to explain how or why the data are displayed the way they are.

Data Presentation Strategies

Authorial

Voice

Realist

• Author narrates in third person; author almost absent; conveys the view of those observed

Confessional

• Researcher is present; written in first person to reveal researcher’s point of view

Impressionist

• Liberal use of metaphors, imagery to tell the story

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Writing

Style of the

Critical

Scholar

• Foregrounds perspective of disadvantaged or marginalized groups

• Exposes inequalities and injustices

• Describes contradictions

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Criteria for

Evaluating

Writing

Is your manuscript

• Well written and engage the reader?

• Effectively address multiple audiences?

• Present credible and interesting data?

• Ethically and politically accountable?

Does your manuscript include

• Reflections on your role?

• An invitation to participate in the interpretation?

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Organizing

Patterns

• Sequence of events

• Good for ethnographies

• Critical points

• Across a number of cases

• Order of importance

• Major to minor

• Minor to major

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Quoting

Participants

• Using quotes strengthens analysis

• Provide frame of reference for quote

• Interpret all quotes

• Find balance between quotes and your description and analysis

• Short quotes are better than long ones

• Use only the best quotes

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Drawing and

Supporting

Conclusions

• What decisions can be made given the descriptions and analyses presented?

Closing paragraphs

• What has been attempted?

• What has been learned?

• What new questions have been raised?

• Consider statement of personal reflection

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Revisiting Your

Analysis

• Analytical skills are related to writing skills

• Accuracy and exactness

• Economical

• Conclusions should be consistent

• Conclusions should ring true

• Framework apparent to reader

• Explain as much of the data as possible

• Heuristic and fertile

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Finishing

the

Qualitative

Research

Report

• Title

• Eliminate “A Qualitative Study of . . .”

• Title page

• Abstract

• Overall objective of research

• Brief explanation of research method

• Brief summary of results

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Using the APA

Style Manual

• Citing others’ work

• Direct citation

• Indirect citation

• Creating the reference list

• Complete alphabetical list by authors’ last names

• Includes all literature cited in the report

• Accuracy

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Sample of quali thesis #1

Sampe of quali thesis #2