Discussion for SRQR item: Data analysis
Data analysis
Describe your analytic process as transparently as possible.1
If you used an approach that has a well-defined process for data analysis (e.g., grounded theory, discourse analysis, phenomenography):
cite the guiding literature
describe your processes in sufficient detail so readers can judge the extent to which your processes align with the guiding approach.
If you modified or deviated from the guiding approach, explain and justify these modifications.
Specify the unit of analysis.2
Explain the rationale underlying different decisions made throughout the data analysis process to provide as much transparency as possible.3
If observations that contrast or deviate from identified concepts or themes were important to your analysis, describe how these discrepancies were handled during the analysis.
If you drew upon a theoretical perspective or framework during analysis, describe theoretical or other influences on your analysis scheme or categories if they exist. If you identified a theoretical perspective or framework early in the conception of the study or after reviewing some or all of their data, consider referring to these as “sensitizing concepts” to acknowledge that the approach is inductive, but with influence from relevant theory, models, or organizational schemes. Alternatively, explain that themes were developed from the data with no external influences.
Describe which members of the research team are involved in data analysis and what perspective(s) they bring to the analysis.
If software was used to assist with data analysis4, describe how it was used. Simply stating that software was used is insufficient.
Footnotes
E.g., characterize the processes and decisions made for initial classification or segmentation of data, pattern identification and description, and/or development of in-depth interpretations.↩︎
In qualitative research, the unit of analysis is not necessarily the same as the unit of sampling (e.g., individual participants or events). Instead, some approaches use specific events as the unit of analysis, such as mentions of a particular topic or experience, or observations of a particular behavior or phenomenon, while others use groups rather than individual group participants. This specification has implications for how the data are organized and analyzed as well as the inferences drawn from the data.↩︎
In some approaches researchers use memoing or bracketing to make their reflections, interpretations, and links among passages explicit and more transparent to others.↩︎
e.g., used to apply codes after the final coding scheme was developed; to extract coded passages for further synthesis and identification of themes; or to identify passages with key words↩︎