I have study wherein the findings include 5 categories consisting of 13 sub-categories, as well as an additional 10 resulting effects of these 5 categories' confluence. This is a huge amount of categories, and certainly more than may fit a peer-reviewed paper (in most journals anyway).
The question is whether, given that I delineate all categories and sub-categories, and the resulting effects in a set of graphs and tables, can I get away with not presenting a complete analysis and a full demonstration of all categories? That is, can I avoid a presentation of an overabundance of evidence? Is there literature discussing this, or otherwise studies wherein this was done?
Thank you.
Jacob - not an easy one to answer. Qualitative findings, as a rule, should present all the narrative data that supports any categories or emerging themes. With your study, but without knowing it's exact context, I would argue that you could consider two things. One - that the 5 'core' categories are presented as the main themes. The 13 sub-categories (and other 10) are presumably closely related to the core ones. They could be subsumed into those core categories to give the 'impression' that there are only 5 themes - and not 20 plus categories. If doing this would compromise the trustworthiness of the data set - my recommendation would be to present all categories targeting a journal that has a very generous word allowance - say 10,000 plus.
I recommend consulting The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research (Sage Handbooks) Fourth Edn by Norman K. Denzin (Editor), Yvonna S. Lincoln (Editor) ISBN-13: 978-1412974172 ISBN-10: 1412974178 It is almost 800 pages with over 40 contributions (chapters) and we use it regularly in our Research Strategies course for postgraduates in the social sciences at RMIT University. Without knowing your topic and cases it is hard to give more detailed advice. Good luck with it!
Hi,
It sounds like you have a great deal of data. Simple question to ask is do you have more than one paper that can be come out of your data? Further, playing on a Grounded Theory term of saturation. You might have reached saturation in regards to what story the data is supporting? Your research story might have been fully told and supported without the need for all of your data. Just a few thoughts.
Regards
Keith
Thank you every one for your thoughtful comments.
Indeed, I had the tought that what is needed is a narrowing down of the categories. Alas, I feel that such a narrowing sown will result in the loss of valuable qualitative discerments.
For instance, if you were to search for cognitive and affective manifestations in a certain context and found 10 different cognitive-affective combination responses corresponding to five different congnitions and 13 different emotions. Would you not wish to give an example of each of the 10 combinations, and explicate how the different affects and cognitions work to form it? Now, lets say that you may aggregate these 10 combinations into positive and negative, self-focuse and other-focused. Would you be satisfied with such a representation if it failed to account for all 10 combinations due to space constraints?
Given the page limits for journals, I recommend concentrating on your five basic categories. Along with that, you could include a table that includes the subcategories in one column, a simple description of each in a second column, and a very brief sample quotation in a third.
Also, remember that only the most motivated of readers will try to understand as much detail as you have described, and same is true of reviewers who tend to get annoyed by an overwhelming amount of data. So, your goal in any one paper should not be to explain everything you have learned, but rather to help the reader understand more than they would have known without your paper.
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