What are the most appropriate methods of qualitative data analysis in social science research?

Generally there are 2 methods / techniques in qualitative data analysis:

Perhaps you can refer to the following RG link for further details:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Which_are_different_qualitative_data_analysis_techniques/1

• You can use nvivo to analyse qualitive data research this will look for the common themes or threads that run through your questionnaire. These threads Ofcom n strands are then linked to your literary review where others have commented on something. Have a read of my research piece about volunteering and the baby boom generation it will give you a little idea of what I am talking about

 Hi Pannilage, most of the qualitative analyses use thematic analysis to analyse the data, typically using NVivo software. Qualitative data shows the variety of opinions and the richness of experiences rather than representativeness, therefore quantifying qualitative data is not appropriate.

Therefore, in terms of reporting the findings, you may wish to use phrases such as "The majority of the participants feel that..." or "Interestingly, one participant explained that....".

I have recently written a qualitative research report on the experience of service users in the UK accessing the local substance misuse services, and the methods section on page 6 might be of interest to you: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301676399_We_Heard_You_Analysis_of_the_Service_Users%27_Feedback_of_the_Adult_Substance_Misuse_Services_in_South_Gloucestershire.Add your answer

Hope this helps.

Technical Report We Heard You: Analysis of the Service Users' Feedback of the...

Thematic Analysis and NVivo are both very popular but I would not say that "most" people use them. Instead they are just two of many choices.

For Thematic Analysis, see Braun and Clarke (2006).

The grounded theory approach is useful for getting a feel for the different themes emerging in your qualitative data. But it can be a real palaver to take it to completion. I use Atlas.ti 7 (similar to NVivo) to identify the main ideas in the data and hence draw out important themes which can lead to the production of substantive theory.

Check out the two publications attached for more info. The one is a set of notes I complied based on a course I attended at the African Doctoral Academy, on Doing Grounded Theory, which might help. The second is a conference paper on my own attempts to apply the method to some qualitative data - with limited success!

Good luck!!

http://www0.sun.ac.za/ada/

Conference Paper Analysing the Cadastral Template Using a Grounded Theory Approach

Technical Report Doing Grounded Theory

Hello Pannilage!

To analyze your data is important to know how you will colect your data. The analysis process depends of this. You can have long and profound interviews, and thus you 'll use that framework analysis, or you can have short sentences from some survey, that is recommended identify themes (usually using NVivo but is not necessary). If you can find, this reference is good: Huberman, A. M., and M. B. Miles. 1994. Data management and analysis methods. Handbook of Qualitative Research. N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln, ed. SAGE, Thousand Oaks, CA.

Good luck!

To quantify data, you must ignore or aggregate over the nuances, so most of the information is lost. Qualitative analysts rarely do that. When they do, it is typically a final step, to summarize or generalize what has been learned.

I endorse Clarissa's recommended reference, which is readily available in a new edition: Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña (2013) Qualitative data analysis: A methods sourcebook. http://books.google.com/books?id=3CNrUbTu6CsC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

I also want to underscore Clarissa's point about the close ties between collection and analysis in qualitative data analysis. Here are a couple of quotes:

"In some kinds of social research you are encouraged to collect all your data before you start any kind of analysis. Qualitative research is different from this because there is no separation of data collection and data analysis." Gibbs, Analysing Qualitative Data (2007, p. 3)

"A striking feature of research to build theory from case studies is the frequent overlap of data analysis with data collection… The central idea is that researchers constantly compare theory and data – iterating toward a theory which closely fits the data." Eisenhardt, "Building theories from case study research" (1989, pp. 538,541) http://www.jstor.org/stable/258557

Finally, it is important to know that qualitative methods allow one to articulate and prove hypotheses of cause and effect in a single context (sample size of one). An especially good read is Collier, “Understanding Process Tracing” (October 2011).  http://www.ukcds.org.uk/sites/default/files/uploads/Understanding-Process-Tracing.pdf

You may also refer to Phenomenological Analysis, which is similar to Grounded Theory, vide:

Goulding, C. (2005) Grounded theory, ethnography and phenomenology: A comparative analysis of three qualitative strategies for marketing research, European Journal of Marketing, 39, 3/4, pp. 294-308.

Starks, H. and Trinidad, S. B. (2007) Choose Your Method - A Comparison of Phenomenology, Discourse Analysis, and Grounded Theory, Qualitative Health Research, 17, 10, pp. 1372-1380.

Jeong, H.-S. (2009) A phenomenological approach to grounded analysis: an interpretive understanding of theory-in-data, International Review of Public Administration, 14, 1, pp. 103-117.

Englander, M. (2012) The Interview: Data Collection in Descriptive Phenomenological Human Scientific Research, Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 1, 43, pp. 13-35.

I cant add to the above answers as I am still fairly new to reseach but thanks so much to everyone for sharing your knowledge -it will be really useful to me and I'm sure to many others.

Many thanks for all who answered this question. They are very much relevant and useful for my research work

There is no onky one approach to data analysis. The procedures that you could decide to use will depend directly of your "research question" . For example is your question is about meaning like "Wich is the perceptions and  meaning of being an adoptive son? you have to use some "phenomenoly approch". I suggest you that look for the book of  Cresswell in which he explained the qualitative methods and their analysis procedures associates.

Sorry my english, I hope you understand my explanation. 

Cristina is quite right that your choice of an analysis method depends on your goals. I would amend her statement, however, to link phenomenology to the "meaning of lived experience," because the goal of studying "meaning" in general is something that all approaches to qualitative analysis would share.

At present, the two most widely used analysis methods are probably Thematic Analysis and Grounded Theory.

I agree with all of the comments above.

A couple of resources that I have found helpful when deciding on methodology: Qualitative Methodology-Mills & Birks, Qualitative Inquiry & Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches -Creswell. However, one of the processes that I found most helpful was talking about my research question with a qualitative methodologist and then using Michael Crotty's scoffolding approach. If you are interested in this last approach, I shared my decision making process using this scaffolding approach and it is available on my research gate page.

Good luck.

I suggest you look at some goo qualitative textbooks but also the journals such as QSW where the articles will have excellent example of data analysis processes.

I agree it depends on your goals, a mixed method approach might also be useful such as thematic analysis pair with narrative or discourse analysis

There is also the popular grounded theory approach, which fits nicely with thematic analysis. Also see Emerson Frets and Shaw about writing ethnographic field notes. It, too, has quite a bit about how to analyze field notes. Even if you are not doing an ethnography, the methods in this book can and have been used for interview data etc.

Thanks , this is very useful

My considered view of qualitative data is informed by the notion that qualitative research focuses on understanding the ways in which people act and the accounts that they give for their action. It is getting the narratives that underpin human action. In this case data is collected using a wide range of variety of methods such as field observation, photography, etc. This means that the main approaches to qualitative data analysis comprise content analysis (CA) and grounded theory. CA will help you focus on the identification of categories embedded in the data. 

Ground theory is the most influential approach to qualitative data analysis. The method helps you discover and develop theory embedded in the data.

Suffice to say that underpinning qualitative data analysis is the question of "invalidity". But you can counter this concern through research participants authentication.

Thanks, this help me a lot

Although I am not a big supporter of Braun & Clarke's (2006) version of Thematic Analysis, I think it cannot be discounted as a "main approach" to qualitative analysis, since it has received nearly 20,000 citation in just 10 years.

Other closely related methods are Thomas' general inductive approach and Ritchie's framework analysis.

Dear!  Thomas' general inductive approach and Ritchie's framework analysis are the most understanding methods.Make your life easy guys.

Thanks

I think this is one of the publications Ms. Mouna is referring to.

http://aje.sagepub.com/content/27/2/237.abstract

I would recommend reading the book Qualitative research: Chooing among five approaches by Creswell.

I would recommend reading "Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches" by Creswell

I use Raven's Eye automated method of quantitative phenomenology to analyze my qualitative research data. You can read about QP and how it is used in social science research at the website. There are examples of social science research done on the website. You can analyze textual or audio data. Which helps me because I do studies with focus groups and interviews- so I have audio files a lot. They charge like the least I have seen for audio transcription and analysis.

https://ravens-eye.net

Thanks Aaron McDaniel