Target Audience

Mid stage postgraduate research students

Early career researchers

THIS COURSE HAS BEEN REPLACED BY RESEARCH INTERVIEW SKILLS

Pre-requisites

Normally participants should have already attended 'Introduction to qualitative research', 'Further qualitative research' or a similar course within their School. This course also follows on from 'Interview workshop'.

Process

This is a one-day course that combines structured discussion activities and practical exercises. There will be some preparatory work, to be carried out before the workshop.

Description

This will be a practical session in which the focus will be on making sense of interview transcripts. There will be some discussion of the production of transcripts, coding and strategies for organising the data.

Related courses

'Using Nvivo® to analyse qualitative data' follows from this course.

If you are thinking of asking your research participants to complete an on-line questionnaire or interview, you may find these e-learning materials developed at Leicester University useful: http://www.geog.le.ac.uk/orm/

This course is for you if you have some prior understanding of qualitative research methods in the social sciences and want to explore this technique further. This will be a practical session in which the focus will be on making sense of interview transcripts. We will help you with techniques such as 'coding' but will also consider how computer analysis, using software such as NVivo®, might contribute to analysing qualitative data. The course is NOT for you, either if you are unaware of qualitative methods (see Introduction to Qualitative Research) or your research is focussed solely around a quantitative approach. Also, is not intended to replace specific, advanced techniques such as discourse analysis and conversation analysis.

Aims

This one-day course aims to present, discuss and develop basic skills in qualiatative data analysis working with typical open-ended data from interviews. The approaches suggested have wide-ranging application, but are not intended to replace specific, advanced techniques such as discourse analysis and conversation analysis.

Objectives

By the end of the course you will have:

• discussed issues of validity and reliability in analysing unstructured and semi-structured data
• coded interview data using paper-based methods
• considered how computer analysis, using software such as NVivo® might contribute to analysing qualitative data
• made an informed judgement about the possible application of these methods for your own project