Showing papers by "Anselm L. Strauss published in 1987"

Qualitative analysis for social scientists

Abstract: The teaching of qualitative analysis in the social sciences is rarely undertaken in a structured way. This handbook is designed to remedy that and to present students and researchers with a systematic method for interpreting qualitative data', whether derived from interviews, field notes, or documentary materials. The special emphasis of the book is on how to develop theory through qualitative analysis. The reader is provided with the tools for doing qualitative analysis, such as codes, memos, memo sequences, theoretical sampling and comparative analysis, and diagrams, all of which are abundantly illustrated by actual examples drawn from the author's own varied qualitative research and research consultations, as well as from his research seminars. Many of the procedural discussions are concluded with rules of thumb that can usefully guide the researchers' analytic operations. The difficulties that beginners encounter when doing qualitative analysis and the kinds of persistent questions they raise are also discussed, as is the problem of how to integrate analyses. In addition, there is a chapter on the teaching of qualitative analysis and the giving of useful advice during research consultations, and there is a discussion of the preparation of material for publication. The book has been written not only for sociologists but for all researchers in the social sciences and in such fields as education, public health, nursing, and administration who employ qualitative methods in their work.

Qualitative analysis for social scientists: Codes and coding

Abstract: Coding is the most difficult operation for inexperienced researchers to understand and to master, as noted earlier. Even when understood theoretically, the actual procedures are still baffling for some people, despite watching an instructor or some other experienced researcher do the coding. What is needed, apparently, are examples of coding steps, and visualizations of actual codes. Finally, considerable practice at coding is requisite. The materials in this chapter are designed to help that learning process. But first recollect that coding: (1) both follows upon and leads to generative questions; (2) fractures the data, thus freeing the researcher from description and forcing interpretation to higher levels of abstraction; (3) is the pivotal operation for moving toward the discovery of a core category or categories; and so (4) moves toward ultimate integration of the entire analysis; as well as (5) yields the desired conceptual density (i.e., relationships among the codes and the development of each) (Glaser 1978, pp. 55–82). To supplement that summary statement, readers should examine again the sections on codes and coding in Chapter 1, and this should be done before studying the materials given below. These consist of several illustrations. The first will illustrate getting off the ground with open coding , by presenting what a research seminar of beginning students did with a fragment of interview data. Next, there is an instance of open coding done with a section of a fieldnote, showing how the initial open coding is done step by step by an experienced analyst. This is followed by a discussion of axial coding illustrated by a set of coding notes done by the same analyst on the same fieldnote.

Qualitative analysis for social scientists: Memos and memo writing

Abstract: In this chapter, a number of theoretical memos written by researchers during their various studies are reproduced. Before reading and studying them, it is requisite to at least scan the earlier discussion in Chapter 1 about memos and their indispensable functions in discovering, developing, and formulating a grounded theory. In the previous chapter on the student seminars as well in later chapters, one can frequently sense the hovering presence of memos which arise out of codes and ideas generated in seminar, consultation, and team sessions. In fact, one explicit rule of thumb is that such sessions must soon be followed by a jotting down or typing out of the summary or the thoughts stimulated, just as individual researchers need to interrupt their data collecting and coding to write memos. Furthermore, recollect that waiting for the muse to appear is not the model here. Although there are periods of intense memo writing, grounded theorists are trained to write memos regularly – often from the first days of a research project – and in close conjunction with the data collecting and coding. (See discussion of the triad, Chapter 1. See also Glaser 1978, pp. 83–92.) The initial memos tend to look a little like those written by novices at this general style of memo writing: at first, a high proportion of them may be operational (what data to collect, where to go to do this), or reminder notes (don't forget to …, or don't forget this point), or scattered “bright ideas,” or fumbling around with a flood of undifferentiated products of coding, or just thinking aloud on paper for purposes of stimulation in order to see where that thinking will lead, and so on.

Qualitative analysis for social scientists: Reading and writing research publications

Abstract: Reading for analytic logic An important preliminary skill to be learned, if only to improve one's writing, is the acquired ability to read research publications for their underlying analytic logics (see, especially, Glaser 1978, pp. 129–30). Of course, everyone reads publications for their ideas, substantive findings, and perhaps, for useful data. But not everyone knows how to examine them for the analytic structures embedded in them. What is meant by “underlying analytic logics” is whether the publication is organized around proof or causality or concern for consequences, or a setting out of strategies or of topologies, or. … Some researchers are quite explicit about the foci of their publications, others are not; and sometimes they themselves are not clear about their analytic purposes. So, it is very good practice for fledgling analysts to be able to read and think in terms of the logic of analysis. Having learned this skill, it helps them to think more clearly about their own writing, to organize it with more facility, and to give critical attention to the presentation of its underlying analysis. It also contributes to the novice researcher's understanding of how grounded theory is developed, and how its presentation often looks quite different from others written in different “qualitative” styles. So the students are presented very early in the seminar with examples of underlying analytic logics; then must practice finding these by themselves. We shall give several examples of such analytic logics, briefly discussed, since once the idea is grasped it only takes a bit of practice to carry out these examinations.

Qualitative analysis for social scientists: Research consultations and teaching: guidelines, strategies, and style

Abstract: It would be less than honest if we did not signal to our readers some of the guidelines, strategies, and general style that lie behind both our teaching of grounded theory methods to students and our consultations with research associates, colleagues, and others who seek advice on the conduct of their own research. Not everyone who is committed to this particular analytic approach would necessarily concur with what will be written below – for strategies and styles are linked with individual temperaments, personal predilections, and teaching/consulting contingencies. But readers will understand much better the contents of this book if they keep in mind that the teaching and consulting portrayed in it are informed by the points covered in this chapter. Again, these are presented in the spirit of their being used as guidelines rather than rules. Please do not regard them as dogmatically held prescriptions for teaching and learning. We use these guidelines also in working with research partners and teammates. Presumably they could also help lone researchers working with – and teaching – themselves. These are guidelines for teaching and consulting, where the aim is not merely to instruct in techniques (though that, too) or to solve technical problems. The aim is to help in enhancing and sometimes in unlocking the creativity of students and consultees. While research has, of course, its routines and its routine stretches of activity nevertheless, the best research – Can anyone seriously doubt it? – involves a creative process by creative minds. The issue here, then, is how to further it and them.

Qualitative analysis for social scientists: Seminar on open coding

Abstract: This chapter is not a discussion of research procedures as such, but is an extended illustration of open coding, with commentaries on particular instances of it. Again, readers who are eager to move directly to procedures should defer reading this chapter until later, although it is placed here because to most readers it should be useful to at least scan it, especially the analytic commentary in its closing pages. The chapter consists of one case: a research seminar session which was recorded on tape. The format of the presentation is this: first, a short introduction to the case; second, the analytic discussion itself; third, an analytic summary, with a detailed commentary on each phase of that unfolding discussion. In the long extended case, the seminar participants are seen working together on the very real data of a researcher–student. By contrast, the pain-theory case in Chapter 2 illustrated a very active teacher, at a very early session of the seminar, “getting across” various elements of grounded theory methodology, using not a presenting student's data but only the combined experiential data of himself and the class participants. Here, while experiential data come visibly into play as an element of the analysis, the chief data are not collective data. Besides, there is the additional, if invisible, drama of a presenting student who is deeply concerned about the outcome – the product – of the class discussion. Of course, the materials in this chapter are designed not only to illustrate the teaching–learning of analysis within the seminar setting, but to clarify further how qualitative analysis, especially open coding, is carried out in the grounded theory style of analysis.

Qualitative analysis for social scientists: Integrative mechanisms: diagrams, memo sequences, writing

Abstract: This chapter will address other means for integrating the entire final analysis: namely, integrative diagrams, memo sequences, and writing itself. First, however, three preliminary points need to be made. To begin with, the operational diagrams, and perhaps other operational graphic devices, help directly to integrate clusters of analyses , but only indirectly the final analysis . These diagrams, however, may contribute to filling out the more general integrative diagrams drawn from time to time. The sorting of memos likewise will usually contribute directly to the integration of analytic clusters but, especially near the close of the research project, may also contribute quite directly to the total analysis. Memo sorting does this latter by clarifying the current integrative diagram, whether early or late in the project, and by clarifying for the researcher what the total analysis is and ought to be. It can do the latter even with the use of integrative diagrams. As for coding: This makes a contribution to integrating both analytic clusters and the total analysis. Coding results are incorporated into the memos, and besides there is a recoding of old data along with coding of new data from time to time, as those procedures are deemed necessary because holes in the current analysis become apparent. In addition, the coding contributes to conceptual density, which in it itself is a part of the final total integration. It is true that integration can be made without much conceptual density (the multiple linkage of many categories, all linked with a core category or categories), but then recollect that this would leave the analysis very thin. (See Chapter 1.)