Approaches to Qualitative Data Analysis in Different Design Traditions
The following sections provide further detail on the analysis of qualitative data when working within the three flexible design traditions on which this text focuses: case studies, ethnographic studies and grounded theory studies. Some consideration is also given to alternative approaches.
The approach taken when following the grounded theory line is unusual in that there are available quite tight specifications for the rules of the game, terminology, procedures, etc. (even though there are lively disagreements among grounded theorists about their appropriateness). Ethnographers appear to have much less concern about setting cut-and-dried rules for the way in which data analysis should take place, but there are important considerations to be taken into account when doing the analysis, arising from the purpose and focus of ethnographic studies. And just as case studies can be extremely various, so have been the approaches taken to the analysis of the data they generate (which are likely to be quantitative as well as qualitative).
Case fact that a study is a case study does not, in itself, call for a particular approach to the analysis of the qualitative data which it produces. A case study could be approached as an exercise in the generation of grounded theory; or it could be thoroughly ethnographic, with the major concern being to gain an understanding of the culture of whatever constitutes the case.