Hi! Nvivo or Atlasti. can be tried out for qualitative research. Thanks

Telford - most of your data will be observational/interview narrative by the sounds of it. If your AR project is purely qualitative - then your most likely analysis framework will be thematic analysis.

Agree with Respected Dean Whitehead

following for an upcoming project

Thanks everyone for your inputs. Dean Whitehead - I was thinking exactly in the same lines of thematic analysis, as this is what is most common as i notice in AR. Thanks once again!

Not a problem Telford. Good luck with the project!!

Hi Telford,

Have a look at #Coghlan, D and Brannick, T. (2005...2014) Doing Action Research in your own organisation. If you are just doing observations and interviews then perhaps Nvivo and thematic analysis will do - follow the procedures set out for both methods. But I doubt this is really action research, where qualitative analysis is more than that and additionally involves reflective analysis and usually analysis of the participation of yourself and of others as well. Here you are a participant /observer and there are dual goals of action (whatever the project is) and research (what themes / aspects are you focusing on your research? Look at the quadrants of study in Coghlan and Brannick and determine where your focus of reflection lies, what your action objectives are, and what your research objectives are. Generally, the analysis will be done in reflective cycles, with first the pre-understanding of the context, then steps in developing the action (diagnosis, planning, taking action, reviewing action), and at each step there will be an experiential cycle (experience, reflect, interpreting, taking action). And there are three levels of reflection - Content, Process, and Premise, which broadly relate to the 3 steps C&B suggest in developing the thesis 'report', i.e. 1. Tell the story, 2. Make sense of the story and 3. So what? - what are the broader implications. Also have a look at Critical Realist action research. Each of these aspects need to be explained and justified in your action research project - otherwise you might be best in describing it as a mixed methods qualitative/exploratory research that happens to be occurring live in your (or an) organisation.

Hi! I believe the appropriate (qualitative) data analysis technique will depend on your action research problem and specific research questions then that's when we choose whether to use qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods. If we deem that qualitative methods are more appropriate and doable and what you have are qualitative data, you would probably be using thematic analysis... I normally decide on just about anything in research relative to the research problem...

Since your going to use more of observational and interview, I suggest you use thematic analysis