I miss stata.
At the moment, I am trying to wade through 61 interview transcripts (which is equivalent to over 3,000 pages of text), searching for common themes. Do they exist? Probably. But as soon as I think I find something meaningful, I read more transcripts and everything becomes muddled.
I am beginning to suspect that qualitative research involves a lot of guesswork, and too many of our own prejudices. Which does not mean that I favor statistics, necessarily. Reading through transcripts is also a good way to realize that one's first, shorthand answer to a question is not always the best representation of a person's attitudes and behaviors.
Back to the grind...
Bourbon-Ginger Pecan Pie
6 months ago
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2 comments:
when i did the qual. part of my diss., i found it really helpful to get a huge piece of drawing paper and draw what i was seeing. then i could draw arrows and color code things and so on. it worked a lot better for me than trying to use any kind of software.
That's a good idea, although I have no idea what I would write. When I was interviewing, I thought I saw certain patterns. Upon reading and coding the transcripts, I saw different patterns, and then when looking at the quotes outside of their context, I see different (and fewer) patterns. Grrr. And it doesn't help that I'm used to thinking quantitatively--when in doubt, I count. This does not help.
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