1. INFO 272. Qualitative Research Methods 22 April 2008
Analysis Pointers

2. Admin
Office Hours today – 12:30 to 1:30 (this week only)

3. Outline
Weak and Strong Analysis
Fallacies of Interpretation

4. Weak analysis
Analytical findings should not simply reflect the initial constructs/concepts from your interview guide
Your analysis is not an exercise in verification

5. Example: Voices of the Poor
A massive, multi-national World Bank, qualitative interview project
Interview guide emphasizes ‘well-being’ and findings suggest that “again and again people distinguished between well-being and wealth.”

6. Strong analysis: Close attention to language
What distinctive terms does the interviewee introduce?
How do they divide up the social (and material) world into elements?
What relationship is posited between these elements?

7. Strong analysis: Typologies and Taxonomies
Gospel
Worship
Praise (faster beat)
Hi-life
Hip-life
Francophone
Gbeho
Hip-hop (American)
Rap (American)
R&B (American)
Kuul, Kulz, Cool
Celine Dion
Westlife(?)
Old School, Old Skuul, Old Skull
Phil Collins
Also contains Hi-life (but not hip-life)
acapella
Instrumental
Country Music
Reggae
Regular
Bob Marley
Lover’s Rock (i.e. Celine Dion, I will always love you, reggae style)
[from interviews about music in Accra, Ghana]

8. Strong analysis: mapping out the diversity of instances
What are all the different forms of Internet scam stories – ‘success stories’ ‘protection stories’ ‘victimization stories’
What are all the different instances of ‘technology’ in a museum and their different properties?

9. Strong analysis: ‘how’ questions
Not “what is the relationship between two variables?” – causation or correlation questions
Instead “How does this system work?” –process questions

10. Strong analysis: checking saying against doing
What people say is often not what they do
Even if you don’t carry out observation you can relate an interviewees concrete examples in interviews to their statements about general attitudes, opinions

11. Fallacies of Interpretation
The fallacy of the missing middle
“Internet Scammers: Robin Hood or Common Criminal?”
Suggesting a dichotomy between two terms that are not mutually exclusive or collectively exhaustive
[Boyce, Chap. 18, Bauer and Gaskell]

12. Fallacies of Interpretation
The adversarial fallacy
That among two sides in a conflict, one is innocent and the other guilty (or truthful and fallacious)
Triangulation of multiple perspectives is not for the purpose of establishing an external truth or for ‘taking sides’
[Boyce, Chap. 18, Bauer and Gaskell]

13. Fallacies of Interpretation
Imputing motive and (in general) mind reading
You can’t definitively read motive from observed behavior
You only know what people’s intentions are when they tell you (and even this is imperfect)

14. Fallacies of Interpretation
The fallacy of disproportionate evidence
Available evidence is uneven
The State generates more documentation than ordinary people.
What perspectives are missing from your data?
[Boyce, Chap. 18, Bauer and Gaskell]

15. Final Word Stay close to your data!
Read and re-read your transcripts, fieldnotes, and any other data!
Don’t forget to code!