Following Miles and Huberman (1994), we find it helpful to organize qualitative data analysis into three categories of things that are done: data reduction and analysis, data displays, and drawing conclusions and verifying theories. Keep in mind that these are not sequential steps but overlapping activities that mutually support one another. As Miles and Huberman (1994,p. 12) atate it : “The three types of analysis activity [data reduction, data displays, and conclusion drawing] and the activity data collection itself form an interactive, cyclical process.” All three activities occur, at least in part, during the process of data collection and may influence and change data collection.
Data Reduction and Analysis
As we describe different kinds of qualitative data analysis in this chapter, it may seem at times as if we are really talking about the process of data collection in the field, which is the topic of Chapter 9. That confusion can arise because in qualitative research, data collection and data analysis often occur simultaneously. In qualitative field research, for example, the data collection phase involves collecting field notes and other materials. “Data analysis” refers to the application of coding schemes and other procedures to those field notes that are described in this section. So, the analysis is sometimes occurring as the data are being collected. The data analysis strategies discussed in this section tend to be of two types. Categorizing strategies attempt to generalize and abstract by generating concepts and even theories from the raw data. Contextualizing strategies attempt to treat the data as a coherent whole and retain as much of the raw data as possible in order to capture the whole context (Maxwell, 1996). Actually, many specific qualitative data analyses might involve elements of both. We will first review categorizing strategies in the form of coding, reflective remarks, and memos. Then the contextualizing strategies will be discussed.