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

The Foundations of Qualitative Research - Rachel Ormston, Liz Spencer, Matt Barnard, Dawn Snape The Applications of Qualitative Methods to Social Research - Jane Ritchie and Rachel Ormston Design Issues - Jane Lewis and Carol McNaughton Nicholls Ethics of Qualitative Research - Stephen Webster, Jane Lewis and Ashley Brown Designing and Selecting Samples - Jane Ritchie, Jane Lewis, Gilliam Elam, Rosalind Tennant and Nilufer Rahim Designing Fieldwork - Sue Arthur, Martin Mitchell, Jane Lewis and Carol McNaughton Nicholls In-depth Interviews - Alice Yeo, Robin Legard, Jill Keegan, Kit Ward, Carol McNaughton Nicholls and Jane Lewis Focus Groups - Helen Finch, Jane Lewis, and Caroline Turley Observation - Carol McNaughton Nicholls, Lisa Mills and Mehul Kotecha Analysis: Principles and Processes - Liz Spencer, Jane Ritchie, Rachel Ormston, William O'Connor and Matt Barnard Traditions and approaches Analysis in practice - Liz Spencer, Jane Ritchie, William O'Connor, Gareth Morrell and Rachel Ormston Generalisability Writing up qualitative Research - Clarissa White, Kandy Woodfield, Jane Ritchie and Rachel Ormston

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Qualitative Research Practice: A Guide for Social Science Students and Researchers

The paper is based on semi-structured interviews with a series of rheumatoid arthritis patients. Chronic illness is conceptualised as a particular type of disruptive event. This disruption highlights the resources (cognitive and material) available to individuals, modes of explanation for pain and suffering, continuities and discontinuities between professional and lay thought, and sources of variation in experience.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1467-9566.ep11339939

Chronic illness as biographical disruption

This article asks methodological questions about studying infrastructure with some of the tools and perspectives of ethnography. Infrastructure is both relational and ecological—it means different ...

/pdf/the-ethnography-of-infrastructure-15neil7ram.pdf

The Ethnography of Infrastructure

We analyze a large-scale custom software effort, the Worm Community System (WCS), a collaborative system designed for a geographically dispersed community of geneticists. There were complex challenges in creating this infrastructural tool, ranging from simple lack of resources to complex organizational and intellectual communication failures and tradeoffs. Despite high user satisfaction with the system and interface, and extensive user needs assessment, feedback, and analysis, many users experienced difficulties in signing on and use. The study was conducted during a time of unprecedented growth in the Internet and its utilities (1991–1994), and many respondents turned to the World Wide Web for their information exchange. Using Bateson's model of levels of learning, we analyze the levels of infrastructural complexity involved in system access and designer-user communication. We analyze the connection between systems development aimed at supporting specific forms of collaborative knowledge work, local orga...

/pdf/steps-toward-an-ecology-of-infrastructure-design-and-access-26zws8cs20.pdf

Steps Toward an Ecology of Infrastructure: Design and Access for Large Information Spaces

The burden of rheumatoid arthritis: tolerating the uncertainty.

Sentiment is frequently involved in work either to get work done efficiently or because of humanistic considerations. This paper explores several questions: Are there different kinds of sentimental work? How is sentimental work carried out? When and where is it done; when not? Who does it? What is its relation to other types of work? When is it likely to be in focus for the workers? When is it visible, when invisible and to whom? What are its consequences: for work, staff, client and organization? The illustrative materials used in this paper are taken from research on the impact of technology on medical work in hospitals.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1467-9566.ep10487954

Sentimental work in the technologized hospital.

The work of hospitalized patients

Background: Little research exists examining patient experiences of life with supraventricular tachycardia (SVT). Realistic expectations of symptoms, patient management strategies, and treatment op...

/pdf/supraventricular-tachycardia-and-the-struggle-to-be-believed-14wbsvmqcy.pdf

Supraventricular Tachycardia and the Struggle to be Believed

This paper is about the complexities of understanding the medical technology scene. A variety of attacks and defences on and of this scene — largely simplistic and encapsulated in catchwords and phrases like 'dehumanization,' 'rising hospital costs,' 'quality of life' - have gained currency. There is a need to recognize the complexities stemming from medical technology, but also to find explanatory patterns. This paper uses the labor and delivery ward and the intensive care nursery (ICN) in the service of illuminating these complexities and patterns. An essential feature of medical-nursi ng work is that it is work on and with humans. Staff focus is on doing something about the course of ill- ness, but in so doing, staff have to deal with the patient as a human being who responds, has a hfe/biography, a family, etc. Bearing on the work are various structural conditions: staff have their own personal and work biographies, and in a real sense so does the hospital, the medical-specialization, the ward itself, the machines within that ward — all of these elements have histories and futures. Also affecting staff work are extemal conditions: the medical-machinery industry, con- sumer movements, etc.

Carolyn Wiener

Papers

The burden of rheumatoid arthritis: tolerating the uncertainty.

Sentimental work in the technologized hospital.

The work of hospitalized patients

Supraventricular Tachycardia and the Struggle to be Believed

Trajectories, biographies and the evolving medical technology scene: labor and delivery and the intensive care nursery