Qualitative Analysis of Interview Data

1. Martyn Hammersley Faculty of Education and Language Studies Open Space/CCIG workshop series on Interviewing Techniques,The Open University, May 2013 Qualitative Analysis of Interview Data

2. What are interview data? • Data are anything that might be worked up into evidence that could help us to answer our research questions, or to improve or reformulate those questions. • Interview questions are not the same as research questions. An example: investigation of the causes of riots, Morrell et al 2011. • Interview data extend beyond what people say: they include how people speak, non-verbal behaviour, their appearance, and even features of the setting where this is their territory. Interviewing as participant observation.

3. Morrell et al on the 2011 riots The research had five key objectives: • To understand the motives of young people who were involved in the riots. • To gather the perspectives of young people from affected areas who chose not to get involved. • To elicit the voices of other community members – residents, parents, business owners and community stakeholders – to capture their views about what led to the riots and why young people became involved. • To engage young people in areas unaffected by the riots to get their perspectives on why rioting did not break out in their areas • To bring these different perspectives together in a summary of the key factors triggering and underpinning involvement in the riots, supported by evidence from the research encounters.

4. The production of data • Data are not simply ‘collected’. To one degree or another, in one way or another, they are produced. • At the very least they have to be ‘worked’ into a form that allows analysis. In particular: - Fieldnotes ‘jotted’ in the field must be written up in full later. - Audio- or video-recordings must usually be transcribed. These are time-consuming activities.

5. What is analysis? • Developing interpretations of the data, and perhaps new concepts, that contribute towards answering research questions; or serve to clarify, improve or reformulate those questions. • Checking the reliability of assumptions, interpretations, and conclusions through searching for and examining evidence.

6. Types of research question • Those requiring descriptions: of people and their attitudes, dispositions, habitual patterns of behaviour etc; of places and the patterns of activity that occur there. • Those requiring explanations for the patterns described, along with evidence showing the presence of the potential causal factors in the contexts studied, and of their likely effects. Explanations always involve descriptions but also inferences from sequences and correlations to causes.

7. Distinct purposes of interviews • To obtain witness information from interviewees • To obtain self-analysis data • To elicit data from which inferences can be drawn about informants’ perceptions, perspectives, attitudes, beliefs, motivation, etc. And perhaps to generalise these to other members of the same category or population of actors • To obtain samples of discourse to allow analysis of discursive practices

8. Witness information • What exactly is the informant describing? • How reliable is the information provided? Was he or she in a good position to observe what went on? The role of memory Is there any reason why he or she may not tell the truth about what is reported? How internally consistent is the account, and how does it relate to other evidence? • What can be inferred from the events, features, etc described relevant to answering (or reformulating) our research questions?

9. Self-analysis • How does the informant characterise her or his intentions, motives, perceptions, personality, etc? • How reliable is this characterisation? Is there any reason why the informant may not be able to understand her or his own intentions, motives, perceptions, etc? Is there any reason to lie about these? • What can be inferred from the characterisation that is relevant to answering (or reformulating) the research questions?

10. Drawing analytic inferences • What can be inferred about the informant’s assumptions, beliefs, or attitudes from what is said? • How reliable are these inferences? Are there alternative interpretations that are at least as plausible, or more plausible? Is there other evidence that can be used to support, or that counts against, the interpretation developed? • Is the informant representative of some larger category relevant to the research questions?

11. Analysing discourse • What discursive patterns of interest can be detected, or what instances of types of pattern relevant to the research questions can be found? • How do these function in the context? What work are they doing? • What more general conclusions can be drawn about discourses circulating in the setting, the discursive repertoires of participants, the constitutive role of particular discourse patterns, and so on?

12. An Uncertain Process • Generally speaking, qualitative research does not begin from a small number of closely specified research questions. • To a large extent, framing and reframing the research questions goes on throughout the research, it is facilitated through working with the data.

13. Variation in qualitative analysis • At one end of the spectrum is discourse analysis: concerned with discursive patterns and practices, with these perhaps seen as constitutive of social phenomena. • At the other end of the spectrum: theme analysis. The sort of analysis that is characteristic of Grounded Theorising and most qualitative research. This uses multiple sources of data to identify naturalistic themes: patterns among features of the orientations of actors, their actions and environments.

14. Discourse analysis • Involves detailed attention to specific textual features, with a view to understanding their mutual relations, functions, etc. • Often it requires identifying sociolinguistic strategies, or the framework of assumptions, that generates particular kinds of social practice or institution: viewing these as textual constructions • Tends to focus on one particular type or source of data: interviews sometimes, but alternatively documents, or recordings of naturally occurring talk. Often focuses on just one corpus of data.

15. Some types of discourse analysis • Narrative analysis • Conversation analysis • Discursive psychology • Linguistic discourse analysis • Critical discourse analysis • Bakhtinian analysis • Post-structuralist discourse analysis (See Hammersley 2003; Wetherell et al 2001a and b)

16. Theme analysis • Seeking to answer research questions about why particular patterns of belief or action, or particular outcomes, occur in particular situations. • Usually involves integrating data of multiple kinds (observations, interviews, documents, etc). • The aim is to develop conceptual categories that relate to causal processes affecting particular people and/or places, or types of these.

17. Stages of theme analysis • ‘Coding the data’: generating categories ‘from’ the data. Initially, involves backgrounding research questions and trying to find what is ‘in’ the data, particularly as regards the perspectives and practices of participants, distinctive features of these and of the settings in which they operate, and so on. • Constant comparative method: comparing data placed in the same conceptual category, in order to clarify and develop ideas about the categories and how they are interrelated. • Checking interpretations and conclusions.

18. A data analysis activity The best way to learn more about qualitative data analysis is to try it out!

19. CAQDAS • Computer assisted qualitative data analysis. • Does not do the analysis, but facilitates the coding, storage, and retrieval of data for analysis. • Is it worth it? Yes if dealing with a large amount of data and using theme analysis. • Which program? (No simple answer, but see sources listed in handout)

20. Conclusion • Qualitative research today takes a variety of, often sharply discrepant, forms. • However, the basic process is often some version of theme analysis, of the kind we have just attempted. • This is essentially an interpretive process, but it is compatible with careful attention to conceptual clarity and empirical validity.

21. Bibliography • Glaser, B. and Strauss, A. (1967) The Discovery of Grounded Theory, Chicago, Aldine. • Hammersley, M. (2003) Discourse Analysis: bibliographical guide. Available at: http://discourseanalysis.bokee.com/inc/20050120231555563641.pdf • Hammersley, M. (2008) Questioning Qualitative Inquiry, London, Sage ch5 • Hammersley, M. and Atkinson, P. (2007) Ethnography: principles in practice, London, Routledge. • Morrell, G., Scott, S., McNeish, D., and Webster, S. (2011) The August Riots in England: Understanding young people’s involvement, London, NatCen/Cabinet Office. • Wetherell, M., Taylor, S. and Yates, S. (eds.) (2001a) Discourse as Data, London, Sage; and (2001b) Discourse Theory and Practice - A Reader, London, Sage.