8.1 Reflections on conducting an interpretative study

3 Go online and read the methods case study ‘Going Reflective’. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each of the three types of data created for this research.

The three types of data were;

• In-depth interviews with those involved in art consumption
• The analysis of diaries
• Visual methods – collages

All these methods formed part of what the writer refers to as a single interpretive case designed to provide ‘thick’ descriptions that will help illuminate actions as well as narratives and voices that shape experiences and take account of the complexity of the identity narratives within one context where art consumption takes place.

In-depth interviews

• Advantages/strengths: These were seen as offering the opportunity for the researcher to delve into an individual’s ‘life world’. This would help to uncover subjective meanings held by the individual as well as uncover multiple identities and identity narratives central to the aims of the study.
• Disadvantages/weaknesses: The author took the view that what in-depth interviews would not allow individual respondents to reflect for themselves sufficiently on their experiences.

Diaries

• Advantages: Diaries were therefore used to allow the individuals to undertake some reflective thinking. They were also seen to be useful in allowing multiple voices to be heard and allow the respondent themselves to unravel the multiplicity of perspectives.
• Disadvantages: Difficulties were reported in getting diaries back (and this is also reported on other studies where diaries have been used). Also, diary authors were reluctant to interpret their diaries themselves making it difficult at the analysis stage for the research to impute meaning into the silences.

Visual methods

• Advantage: This method was used to tap into an individual’s ‘inner reality’ and thoughts and concepts, often unconsciously held. The method aimed to surface the many unconscious connections individuals made in relation to consumption. It was also hoped that the method would enable individuals to go beyond their conscious understandings and bring forth disparate voices that would add to understanding gained from the in-depth interviews and diaries. The method involved producing a collage where statements and objects were compared and contrasted. This approach was felt to emphasis the ‘subjective meaning’ as individuals experienced them.
• Disadvantage: Difficulties were expressed about the ability to analyse the collages ‘so as not to lose their unique dimensions’ and how the researcher was going to ‘reflect on collages so as to link them with the other sources and accounts’.

8.2 Preparing your data

1. In pairs, prepare a list of issues you need to consider when preparing qualitative data for analysis. Discuss how you would organize your data (chronologically, thematically, by type of data, etc.) and how you would label them.

Data preparation usually addresses the following concerns:

1. Are my data stored in a way that is safe, secure and in line with the current data protection laws and protocols? Do I have sufficient backups? While these questions might appear so obvious that they needn’t even be stated, experience has shown that in the excitement of conducting research they can easily be overlooked.

2. Are my data stored in a way that makes it easy for me to find individual files when I need them? It can take hours to organize data in a coherent way. However, even more time can be saved by developing a consistent system for labelling files and folders. For example, a short file name like O1_P2_140212_I2T can reveal that the file labelled in this way is the transcript (T) of the second Interview (I2) with person 2 (P2) in organization 1 (O1) which took place on 12 February 2014 (120212). Having all your data labelled in this way and organized in folders (whether these are structured around types of data or organizations/persons) allows for a more systematic and often a more enjoyable experience when you come to analyse your data. Make sure that you create a spreadsheet that provides you with an overview of all of your data and indicates how you have labelled them, and where they are stored.

3. Are my data stored in a format that facilitates the analysis? Depending on the type of data and on the methods used to analyse them (e.g. software package), some data might have to be converted into a different format (e.g. mp3), transcribed (e.g. audiotaped interviews) or require formatting (header with data/time, page and line numbers, margins for coding, etc.). Some researchers anonymize their data at this stage, others leave it to later in the research process. Whenever you anonymize data make sure that you keep the list that identifies each of the anonymized participants/organizations in a safe place (i.e. in line with data protection guidelines).

2. Compare the use of a contact summary form to the Systematic and Reflexive Interviewing and Reporting (SRIR) method introduced by Nicholas Loubere in Chapter 6. What are the similarities, what are the differences?

The SRIR method is a method for conducting and recording interviews, which is based on a participatory approach. It is particularly useful when conducting multilingual qualitative research with a team of researchers and assistants. It aims at a high degree of reflexivity as researchers engage in reflexive dialogue, and jointly write interview and analysis reports. In contrast, a contact summary form is a simple technique for recording fieldwork and interviews. It offers a fairly structured way of recording fieldwork activities and can be used to complement (or instead of) verbatim recordings and transcription. Templates like the one illustrated in Figure 8.1 are particularly useful for structured interviews that aim at the collection of certain bits of information but – like a survey – are less concerned with how this information is presented of what it means to the interviewee. Like the SRIR method, contact summary forms can speed up data collection to a degree (transcriptions can take a long time to complete), but they also involve the reduction of certain nuances of expression as they do not record an interview word-by-word. Researchers record their interpretation of what a contact has communicated to them, and they focus on what they deem to be important to their research. This indicates a trade-off as on the one hand the technique is more efficient in the sense that the researcher focusses on what is needed (structuration of data early on in the research process) on the other hand this structuration narrows down what a later analysis can achieve. In the case of the SRIR method, the use of a record does not aim at reducing complexity but at enabling the involvement of researchers as well as of local assistants and informants in the analytic process. Such approach is particularly useful in research across cultural and language barriers where researchers may understand and interpret what was being said in an interview in way that is quite different from what was meant by the interviewee. Here, a record is not used to focus on what is important to the researcher but to explore what might be important to the interviewee but could be overlooked by the researcher.

8.3 Exploring content analysis

2. In pairs, discuss what ideas or concepts could be used in a study about the advantages and disadvantages of doing an MBA earlier or later in life. Create a checklist matrix that could be used to analyse interviews with current MBA students and alumni.

An MBA degree is a postgraduate post- experience qualification originally designed to benefit managers operating at a strategic level within their organizations. As a consequence, the degree covers almost the full range of disciplines and functions of management, from accounting and finance to organizational behaviour and operations management and marketing. Managers are also expected to develop certain skills within the degree in areas such as managing change and conducting research projects. Although in recent years a number of specialist MBA programmes have been developed (e.g. MBAs in finance), some argue that these detract from the essential general management nature of the programme, which is seen as a strength in the context of strategic management.

In order to understand the benefits of the degree being undertaken earlier or later in a manager’s life, it would be important to interview a range of managers each with different levels with a view to explore such areas as:

• Were the managers able to contribute effectively to the programme, that is, share their experiences of work and how they operate. How important is their level in the organization and to what extent does their experience and seniority do justice to the material presented and the effect on other members of the MBA cohort to which they belong (belonged).
• Were they able to benefit from the material being presented? That is, did they find the material useful in their current or potentially future role. Was the knowledge and ideas presented of use such that it could be readily translated into practice?

Ideas for a checklist matrix:

Name of manager  1    2         3          4          5          6          7          8          9          10

Theme or Information gained from the interview

Age of the manager

……..……………………………………………………………………………………………

Strategic management experience

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

Ability use course content immediately

a.   Which

b.   Which

c.   Etc

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

Potential to use course content in the future

a.   Which

b.   Which

c.   Etc.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

Wished they had completed the course earlier in career?

a.   Why

b.   Etc.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

Wished they had completed the

course later in career?

a.   Why

b.   Etc.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

Reasons for undertaking the course.

a.   Self-funding – personal development

b.   Company-sponsored career development

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

Satisfaction with the course

Be specific

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

Open theme 1

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

Open theme 2

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

3. It has been argued that content analysis can be a qualitative, theory-building – as well as quantitative, theory-testing – approach. Why is this so? Discuss the criteria that determine whether content analysis is used in a qualitative or quantitative way.

Quantitative content analysis can involve the application of pre-determined categories and codes. Such analysis aims at illustrating and extending existing theorizing by testing and adapting categories/codes that derived from previous research and theorizing. Therefore, quantitative content analysis benefits from software solutions for the auto-coding of text software solutions such as ‘Leximancer’, which can also be used to quantify patterns in communication in a replicable and systematic manner. Such quantitative but data-driven approaches lend themselves for the creation of categories derived from the frequency list of words. Qualitative content analysis can involve the application and incremental revision of some preliminary analytic framework but it is more about the theory creation through the interpretative analysis of text rather than the testing of hypotheses. Codes and categories are not primarily linked to the frequency of certain words or phrases but are analysed with a view to their perceived meaning, intentionality and implications. Such analysis is difficult if not impossible to conduct using auto-coding software even if some may argue that advances in use of Artificial Intelligence will soon change that. For the time being, however, qualitative content analysis is closer to thematic analysis in that in involved manual or computer-assisted coding of data and the analysis of codes, categories and/or themes.

8.4 Coding and MEMO writing

Discuss what kind of information should be included in a code book and how it should be organized.

Codebooks provide a structured overview of the codes developed for a particular project or analysis. Codebooks improve consistency in the coding, in particular when multiple researchers work on the same project. Depending on the research design, codebooks listing pre-determined codes can be used to index data and they can also guide the analysis. However, most qualitative approaches involve the incremental development of a codebook, which then traces the development of the analysis. Without a codebook, researchers can easily get lost in their analysis as codes begin to accumulate. By making researchers think more about their codes, and the relationships between their codes, the creation of a codebook can enhance the analytic process. Codebooks are often presented as tables that include the following information: the label of the code, a brief definition, guidelines for when (not) to use the code, a few examples, and, in the case of more important codes, more detailed memos on the development and meaning of this code. Codebooks are usually organized around themes or types of codes. For example, there might be a section on codes for different kinds of respondents or organizations, another for codes labelling different activities or viewpoints. For more elaborate projects it can be useful to create a codebook using a database management programme such as Access. This facilitates the production of different versions of the codebook and can be useful as you might want to organize your codes in different ways. Some database formats can then be imported into qualitative data analysis software packages.

8.5 Exploring template analysis

Download and read Wyatt and Silvester’s article. Make a list of all the steps of the research process (however small or banal) they mention. Why do they emphasize the importance of reflexivity?

Wyatt and Silvester emphasize the importance of reflexivity when developing templates to cultural or ideological bias. By constantly questioning and scrutinizing coding decisions, and having colleagues’ code sections of text, the researchers sought to enhance the rigour of the analytic procedure.

Discuss the following questions as a class: What kind of themes did Wyatt and Silvester use? Where they all derived from the data?

The themes were predominantly derived from the data but in contrast to most grounded theory approaches, template analysis also allows for existing research findings to be used as a starting point for developing an initial template and a priori codes.