Introduction to Qualitative Analysis (Discourse and Thematic Analysis) PDF

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Brief introduction to qualitative analysis, how to conduct discourse and thematic analysis ...

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Introduction to Qualitative Analysis (Discourse and Thematic Analysis) DIFFERENCE BETWEEN QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE RESEARCH  

Quantitative – Concerned with understanding the causes of a phenomenon Qualitative – Concerned with understanding the meaning of phenomenon

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AS A PARADIGM        

Assume there is no one correct version of reality or knowledge, rather embrace multiple versions of reality Claims knowledge must not be consider outside of the context in which it is generated Focus on the analysis of words that are not reducible to numbers. Interested in meaning rather than reports and measuring of behaviour or internal cognitions. Use of inductive, theory generating theory; Anti-experimental setting Rejection of natural sciences as a model of research Recognise researcher comes from a subjective position

PROBLEMS WITH QUALITATIVE RESEARCH  

Research bias associated with trustworthiness/objectivity/credibility as it is not based on fact and merely opinion Reduce this by o Reflectivity: Thinking about your potential biases and how you can minimise their effect o Negative-case sampling: Attempt to locate and examine cases that disconfirm your expectation o Descriptive validity: Show that what is collected and observed is accurate o Interpretive validity: How accurate your interpretation portrays what the thinking and feeling was of the participant o Theoretical validity: Going beyond the concrete description and interpretation to explain succinctly the most amount of data o Descriptive validity: Multiple investigators collect and interpret data o Interpretive validity: Participant check, low interference description o Theoretical validity: Multiple theories, pattern matching Discourse Analysis

INTRODUCTION TO DISCOURSE ANALYSIS 

Austin – words as deeds o Don’t care about language – only care about what it can tell us about people and psychology

Language is how we construct our social world Language is there to bring about feelings and responses from other people – we care why/how people are saying things and what they want it to bring about o Words don’t necessarily mean what they seem to. Even if the same words are used, could mean different things Difference between content and discourse analysis o Content analysis: This is everything that is talked about e.g. all of the themes. o Discourse analysis is fundamentally different – we don’t care whether they’re happy or not, but why they have said it/purpose of saying they are happy not e.g. justifying the divorce by saying she’s happier for it Description as action – describing is seldom passive sketching of what one sees o ‘One of the most important features of descriptions is their could-havebeen-otherwise quality. No description of anything is the only one that is reasonable or possible … any event description is only one version, and a potentially variable and contentious one … It is not only that descriptions could have been otherwise; usually there is a fairly specific ‘otherwise’ that is at issue. They… have a rhetorical, argumentative quality with regard to what somebody else might say.” (Edwards, 1997) Psychology and language o The traditional view  Language is an outward expression of mental life  Words (discourses) themselves are unimportant – only interested in what they can tell us about inner cognitive processes – perception, processing, storage, retrieval o The alternative view – discursive psychology (discourse analysis)  Part of the ‘discursive turn’ and is connected with social constructionism  Discourse is a fundamental, centrally constituting, feature of the social world  ‘It is through language that we create the real and the good, that we create our histories and our destinies’ (Gergen, 2003)  Language is a way to view social process/action  Language is productive (creates social phenomena) and is constructive (representative of social phenomena)  We have a psychological language because that is the basis of understanding and developing our psychological being  Psychology needs to look at how people naturally use language in order to understand our psychology  Discourse analysis is an attempt to put into practice the philosophical understanding that highlights that our psychology is grounded in our use of language  Speech is part of a performance – speech has power Assumptions underpinning discourse analysis o Social life primarily made up of talk and text o Discourse is fundamental to social life o Language as 'social action' - words do things. Talk does much more than simply reflect external world or communicate internal thoughts and ideas talk constructs social world through interaction o There are multiple 'realities' o There is more than one 'true' way to understand things Three central components of discourse (Potter & Wetherell, 1987) o Function - the specific functions achieved by particular instances of talk o o

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Variation - talk is oriented to achieving various different functions, then it makes sense that analysis of talk will reveal variation in function o Construction - ‘Actively select (pre-existing) linguistic resources to construct a particular accounts of reality Pre-existing linguistic resources (Interpretative repertoires/discursive devices) o Relatively internally consistent bounded language that people can use to construct an account of reality – building blocks used to construct aversion of reality  e.g. Three part lists (Jefferson, 1990) Three part lists (e.g. here, there and everywhere) used to add credibility to accounts o Importantly, discourse analysis is not about spotting the discursive devices o What is required is to show what the feature does, how it is used, what it is used to do, how it is handled sequentially and rhetorically, and so on Key concepts o Subjective Positions  Recognition that in saying something the person is taking at stance that allows the person to present a moral & position attribute  A stance that can be occupied during a conversation – can during conversation/interaction occupy different stances. o Ideological dilemmas  Composed of beliefs, values and practices of a given culture – common sense – but contradictory – can be represented by proverbs or 'well known maxims’  E.g. two common-sense maxims: ‘don’t air your dirty washing in public’ vs. ‘it’s best to front up and face the music’ – these maxims collide in a way which on occasions necessitates difficult decisions  Maxims are rhetorically powerful – they contain contradictory elements whereby you can pit them against each other. They also provide variable ways to describe things. They are difficult to refute – ‘bottom line’ arguments o

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DOING DISCOURSE ANALYSIS  

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Read through the text until you become familiar with it What leaps out at you as you read through? Think about what is going on in the talk; what sort of business are the speakers involved in e.g. blaming, justifying, describing etc. Is the narrative structure of the text important? How does the constructed meaning of the text change as the words change? Think about possible themes or research questions that you could use to focus your analysis. These can be very simple, such as ’How are categories used to manage identity?’ or ‘How are issues of blame and accountability deal with in the text?’, ‘Who is being spoken about and who is not being spoken about?’ Always try to look for counter-examples Search for keywords or phrases that relate to the question you’re interested in; examine the paragraph/sentences it has been used in and consider the context in which the word has been used; always consider what is being achieved by using the words Look for discursive devices (the means to carry out intent) e.g. 3-part-lists, extreme case formulation, etc. – what are these doing? What psychological business are they attending to? Ask…

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Would alternative wording of the same information have resulted in different discourses being privileged? What is being carried out? What is being said in what way? What effect does it have? How are the events presented? Are there any emotional words? When are they used? In relation to what? How are people in the article characterised? What message does the author intend you to get from the article? Why was this particular picture (if applicable) chosen to accompany the article? What repetition exist (a) within the article and (b) between different articles on the same topic? Why this word? - Try replacing words with others such as ‘this young girl’ to ‘this young woman’

DISCURSIVE DEVICES Discursive strategy/device Doing being ordinary

Discourse markers

Emotion categories

Pronoun use and footing

Extreme case formulations Minimisation (link with irony) Variable vagueness vs. specificity

Active voicing 3-part lists Stake and interest Membership

Description Speaker may position themselves as ordinary folk as strategy in conversation e.g. interview with Princess Diana: ‘Were you overwhelmed by the pressure from people initially?’ ‘Yes, I was very daunted because as far as I was concerned, I was a fat, chubby, 20 year old, and I couldn’t understand the level of interest’ Words such as ‘but’, ‘well’, ‘so’, ‘you know’, ‘so’, ‘because’, ‘or’ e.g. A: ‘I like him’. B: ‘So, you think you’ll ask him out then?’ B: ‘John can’t go’. ‘And Mary can’t go either’. C: ‘Will you go? Furthermore, will you represent the class there?’ D: ‘Sue left very late. But she arrived on time’. E: ‘I think it will fly. After all, we built it right.’ Not referring to underlying emotional states. Emotional categories like ‘happy’ or ‘angry’ are not treated as neutral, objective description. Rather, they are a resource for holding others accountable, and useful for setting up rhetorical contrasts (e.g. versus ‘rational’). Using ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘you’, etc. Used to distance or align oneself with others. E.g. ‘Scientists claim that there is a biological basis of personality’, ‘I saw it with my own eyes’ Using words like ‘very’, ‘tremendous’, ‘extremely’ or ‘the worst’ to strengthen an argument or account. Can also be treated ironically The opposite of extreme case formulations. E.g. ‘it was just a little bump’ The use of explicit detail and/or ambiguous information in the development of a particular account. E.g. ‘Some 'do-gooders' argue that we should not decrease the number of immigrants coming in each year, last year 27,000 immigrants were allowed to stay’, ‘There were a few good candidates for the job but John scored 86% on his cognitive ability test’ This is when speakers report the words of others as if they were spoken directly. Used to add authenticity and credibility These are common in much talk and especially in political speeches – adds credibility and authenticity Display that other people’s accounts are biased because of their (presumed) interest. ‘Well he would say that, wouldn’t he’ Displays being part of a group and invoked to justify person is

categorisation device Contrast structures

‘qualified’ to say certain things or behave in certain ways Show difference. They can be used in identity construction, locating the speaker in contrast with another Thematic Analysis

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Why we use it o Accessible, flexible, analyse a variety of texts, provides rich and complex understanding Aims to find patterns in meanings by initially coding the data and then generates themes that answer the research question o Code: A code is produced when you read a transcript and note down short comments to sum up segments of your data, usually in the margins of your transcript. Codes transcribe initially, then try to see if multiple codes relate to each other in terms of a theme o Theme: A theme captures something important about the data in relation to the research question and represents some level of patterned response or meaning within the data set. Researcher identifies an area of the data, often reflective of the data collection question, then summarise everything the participants said in relation to this and report back  Types of themes  Manifest theme (bucket): Summarises everything participant said in relation to research question, often at surface areas of meaning, overview type statement  Latent theme (story book): Pattern of shares meaning underpinned by a central concept or central idea, seen as abstract, captures implicit meaning beneath the surface

Theme

Code 1

Code 3 Code 2

THEMATIC MAP

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Stage 1 2

Stage –

tidying it up a little, making sure themes and codes are supportable and to improve the analysis

SIX STEPS TO ANALYSIS  Familiarize yourself with the data o Read and re-read o Overall picture o Bedrock of the analysis o Notice pattern and meaning – generate conceptual ideal  Generate initial codes o A code is a word or brief phrase that captures the essence of why you think a particular bit of data may be useful. May be…  Semantic content: Explicit, data driven – succinct summaries of the explicit content of the data (merely what is there)  Latent content: Implicit, conceptual interpretation – Identify implicit meaning of the content of the data (not actually said in the text, go beyond the explicit content)

Identify aspects of the data depending on the approach – specifically related to research question o Coding can allow themes to emerge o Coding for inclusiveness o For each part of next text, decide whether you can apply a code you have already used or come up with a new code o Each code should be distinct from each other o Data that doesn’t contain anything within the question should not be coded o Ways of coding  Complete coding: Code all data and later be more selective, attempt to identify anything and everything of interest/relevance to answering the research question  Selective coding: Identify instances of phenomena that are of interest to answering the research question o If unsure about whether something is relevant to address your research question, code it to be safe o Finished coding: Collate all the coded data and put all the instances of a text with the same code together Search for themes o Re-focus beyond the long list of codes to broader themes o Sort and collate codes into themes o Start to analyse codes and combine into hierarchy of themes o Themes describe an outcome of coding from analytic reflection o Themes are central organising categories that emerge from the data that will contain different ideas/aspects o Attempt to identify and report the salient features of the data o Assume these patterns capture something psychologically or socially meaningful o Aim is to capture the different elements that are most meaningful to answer your question – about meaning not frequency of things o In this phase, it is important to begin by examining how codes combine to form over-reaching themes in the data o Themes differ from codes in that they describe an outcome of coding for analytic reflection o Themes are central organising categories that emerge from the data that will contain different ideas/aspects like the following: repeating ideas; indigenous terms, metaphors and analogies; shifts in topic; and similarities and differences of participants' linguistic expression o It is important at this point to address not only what is present in data, but also what is missing from the data Review themes o Refine themes and subthemes o Some are not really themes and are better collapsed together or split up into two o If themes form a coherent pattern, there is a good thematic map Define and name themes o Define and further refine themes o Identify essence of each theme o Determine what aspect of the data each theme captures Produce the report o Write up as part of analysis o

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Tells the ‘story’ of your data – convinces reader of validity and merit of the analysis Provide evidence of themes: extracts  Enough data extracts  Extracts fit the story well  Vivid examples or capture the essence of the theme...