realities but rather just different perspectives on reality. So how can they be compared? For critical realists this is not by reference to whether they correspond to reality (or not). Rather, they take a pragmatic view in appraising these different understandings of things and ask what works; that is, what can be successfully used to change the world?
In practice, few qualitative analysts are purely realist or idealist. Most are concerned to portray, as accurately and faithfully as possible, what people actually said, what they did and what they meant, and to that extent they are realists. However, all would agree that qualitative research is a matter of interpretation, especially the researcher’s interpretation of what respondents and participants say and do. A key commitment of qualitative research is to see things through the eyes of respondents and participants. This involves a commitment to viewing events, actions, norms, values, etc., from the perspective of those being studied. The researcher needs to be sensitive to the differing perspectives held by different groups and to the potential conflict between the perspectives of those being studied and those doing the studying. Thus, there can be no simple, true and accurate reporting of respondents’ views. Our analyses are themselves interpretations and thus constructions of the world.
The aim of qualitative analysis
Another thing to think about at the start of analysis is what kind of outcomes qualitative analysis can produce. Of course this might seem to be determined already because you are working on a funded research project or a policy or evaluation study with very clearly defined research aims which specify the outputs expected. But often this is not the case. Typically, qualitative projects are much more open ended, having titles like ‘To investigate the phenomenon of …’. They are also exploratory; that is, they are examining phenomena and fields where we may not be at all clear what we expect to find. So, until data analysis starts (and sometimes well into data analysis) it may not be clear what the outcomes of the research will be. Actually, even in the case of tightly defined projects or evaluations, the data we have gathered may allow us to move beyond the originally defined aims. Here are some possibilities.
In-depth description of social phenomena
At its simplest this will be appropriate if the phenomena are ones about which we know very little because they are new or have not been researched before. Typically, this is the kind of output delivered by most ethnographic research. However, it is important to realize that this is not just a summary of what people said. For a start it should be in-depth, that is to say, it will include not just a record of what people said or did but the whole context in which these things happened in considerable detail. Second, the description may go far beyond the respondent’s own accounts of what was going on. This might be because your description pays attention to the narrative structure of the respondent’s story or because it is interested in the ways that people use language to achieve their aims and strategies.
Develop and refine hypotheses
This is particularly appropriate if your qualitative analysis is part of some mixed methods research. A very common research design in mixed methods is to start with some qualitative research aimed at mapping out the landscape so that quantitative research questions can be identified and addressed in the later stages of the research. Typically, this design will be used if the researchers don’t know enough about the research domain at the start to specify clear hypotheses to be addressed in quantitative terms. The aim of this approach is to establish the range of phenomena to be found in the research area and the ways these phenomena might interact. This will then enable later quantitative research to establish how frequently these phenomena occur, how much impact they have and what the most likely (and least likely) relationships are between them and other circumstances. However, this kind of approach does not need to be followed by quantitative research. Although the qualitative analysis won’t be able to give accurate numeric estimates of frequency, etc., your analysis could at least establish the most likely situations and their relationships with other phenomena in the field you are investigating.
Create a model that explains the determinants of the research phenomenon
This kind of approach is most pertinent if your research is addressing some policy or practice needs or even is aimed at evaluating some programme of activity. The model you develop will show all the significant aspects of the phenomenon you are investigating and how they affect each other. This will give those wanting to change their practice in dealing with these phenomena some idea of what they can change and what impact they might have. Your analysis will focus on establishing the main components of this model (the key phenomena) and how they affect each other (what causes what) and even what strategies people adopt in order to achieve certain outcomes.
Develop a theory
This is an approach favoured by those following grounded theory and it overlaps a little with the previous approach, creating a model. The key point to recognize here is that there are different kinds and levels of theory. You don’t need to come up with a grand theory of the kind we associate with Goffman, Foucault or Bourdieu – though it would be great if you did. The theory can be much more localized or smaller scale. It may focus on a key phenomenon and explain how it has all kinds of impact on people’s actions. It might even be a version of an existing theory but modified for the particular circumstances you are investigating. The main characteristics of a theory in qualitative research are that it has the power to explain some phenomena and outcomes and commonly it uses terminology that is not being used by the participants you are investigating. It is not that they are not aware of what is going on but rather that they won’t talk in those terms or explain their actions that way.
These approaches are not mutually exclusive, actual analysis might combine two or more of them, and they are not the only ways of thinking about your analysis. But they do reflect the differences in methodology and philosophy that I discussed in the previous section. It is not that a particular methodological stance inevitably means that you are committed to a particular research aim, but rather that it will tend to lead you to certain aims in the first instance. However, one of the big benefits of qualitative analysis is that you can be flexible, and although you may start off (by inclination or by design) with a certain methodology and research aim, as your analysis develops and your understanding grows, other outcomes and other aims may begin to present themselves. That is a good thing. That is the way you can come up with original, insightful and useful results from your analysis.
Ethics
Ethical issues bear upon qualitative research like any other research. However, they mostly affect the stages of planning and data collection. For example, the principle of fully informed consent means that participants in research should know exactly what they are letting themselves in for, what will happen to them during the research and what will happen to the data they provide after the research is completed. They should be made aware of this before research on them starts and they should be given the option to withdraw from the research at any time, and usually, if they request it, any data that has been collected from them will be returned or destroyed. All of this happens well before the data are analyzed.
However, there are some special aspects of qualitative data and their collection that raise ethical issues. Perhaps the most significant is that qualitative data are usually very personal and individual. The identification of individuals cannot be hidden behind aggregated statistics when data are analyzed and reported on. Unless special steps are taken, reporting on qualitative data, and especially the use of direct quotations from respondents, will commonly identify specific participants and/or settings. Sometimes this is not an issue, and especially when it is with the agreement of participants, their real identity and that of the settings and organizations they are
