Collaborate – Think Critically: Learn from researchers who have been in your shoes – use their examples and experiences to explore how their ‘lessons learned’ can improve your own research approach. Take it one step further with additional thought-provoking questions online.

2.1 Starting with quantitative data

Like Johan, Penny, Anh and Charles, did your research move on from quantitative data to qualitative research? If so, what might your qualitative data show that quantitative data could not?

Penny moved from quantitative analysis of medical records to qualitative interviews – what might these interviews with women leaving prison to reveal that the medical records would not? How could this qualitative data help her answer her research questions?

2.2 Moving beyond quantitative data

Following Amir’s argument. in what ways can you argue that your research will go beyond what is available in quantitative data?

One of the issues Amir encountered was the difficulty in controlling and organizing the number of variables in complex data. Do you think qualitative research can remedy this issue? What information might in-depth interviews with offenders provide that the quantitative data could not?

2.3 Building hypotheses

Fariba Darabi explains how she built and tested hypotheses from her qualitative interview data in this article:

Darabi, F. (2016). Investigating a university business school and industry collaboration: A general analytical inductive qualitative research case. In SAGE Research Methods Cases.

Following Fariba’s example, how do you plan to build hypotheses and test them in your own research project?

Like Fariba, would you use analytical inductive analysis? Consider the ways in which she analyses her data and uses cross-case analysis – would you approach it in this way?