Qualitative Research: Data Collection, Analysis, and Management

By Jane Sutton and Zubin Austin

Introduction
Qualitative research can help researchers to access the thoughts and feelings of research participants,
which can enable development of an understanding of the meaning that people ascribe to their
experiences. Whereas quantitative research methods can be used to determine how many people
undertake particular behaviours, qualitative methods can help researchers to understand how and why
such behaviours take place.
Qualitative work requires reflection on the part of researchers, both before and during the research
process, as a way of providing context and understanding for readers. When being reflexive, researchers
should not try to simply ignore or avoid their own biases (as this would likely be impossible); instead,
reflexivity requires researchers to reflect upon and clearly articulate their position and subjectivities
(world view, perspectives, biases), so that readers can better understand the filters through which
questions were asked, data were gathered and analyzed, and findings were reported. From this
perspective, bias and subjectivity are not inherently negative but they are unavoidable; as a result, it is
best that they be articulated up-front in a manner that is clear and coherent for readers. (Xavier, 2008)
The participant’s viewpoint
What qualitative study seeks to convey is why people have thoughts and feelings that might affect the way
they behave. An important point about qualitative research is that there is no attempt to generalize the
findings to a wider population. Qualitative research is used to gain insights into people’s feelings and
thoughts, which may provide the basis for a future stand-alone qualitative study or may help researchers
to map out survey instruments for use in a quantitative study. It is also possible to use different types of
research in the same study, an approach known as “mixed methods” research.
The role of the researcher in qualitative research is to attempt to access the thoughts and feelings of study
participants. This is not an easy task, as it involves asking people to talk about things that may be very
personal to them. Sometimes the experiences being explored are fresh in the participant’s mind, whereas
on other occasions reliving past experiences may be difficult. However the data are being collected, a
primary responsibility of the researcher is to safeguard participants and their data. Mechanisms for such
safeguarding must be clearly articulated to participants and must be approved by a relevant research
ethics review board before the research begins. Researchers and practitioners new to qualitative research
should seek advice from an experienced qualitative researcher before embarking on their project.
Data collection
Whatever philosophical standpoint the researcher is taking and whatever the data collection method (e.g.,
focus group, one-to-one interviews), the process will involve the generation of large amounts of data. In
addition to the variety of study methodologies available, there are also different ways of making a record
of what is said and done during an interview or focus group, such as taking handwritten notes or video-
recording. If the researcher is audio- or video-recording data collection, then the recordings must be
transcribed verbatim before data analysis can begin. As a rough guide, it can take an experienced
researcher/transcriber 8 hours to transcribe one 45-minute audio-recorded interview, a process than will
generate 20–30 pages of written dialogue.
Many researchers will also maintain a folder of “field notes” to complement audio-taped interviews. Field
notes allow the researcher to maintain and comment upon impressions, environmental contexts,
behaviours, and nonverbal cues that may not be adequately captured through the audio-recording; they are
typically handwritten in a small notebook at the same time the interview takes place. Field notes can
provide important context to the interpretation of audio-taped data and can help remind the researcher of
situational factors that may be important during data analysis. Such notes need not be formal, but they
should be maintained and secured in a similar manner to audio tapes and transcripts, as they contain
sensitive information and are relevant to the research.
Data analysis and management
If, as suggested earlier, doing qualitative research is about putting oneself in another person’s shoes and
seeing the world from that person’s perspective, the most important part of data analysis and management
is to be true to the participants. It is their voices that the researcher is trying to hear, so that they can be
interpreted and reported on for others to read and learn from. Data can be managed, analyzed, and
presented.

Interpretation of Data

Transcribing and Checking

For the purposes of this paper it is assumed that interviews or focus groups have been audio-recorded. As
mentioned above, transcribing is an arduous process, even for the most experienced transcribers, but it
must be done to convert the spoken word to the written word to facilitate analysis. For anyone new to
conducting qualitative research, it is beneficial to transcribe at least one interview and one focus group. It
is only by doing this that researchers realize how difficult the task is, and this realization affects their
expectations when asking others to transcribe. If the research project has sufficient funding, then a
professional transcriber can be hired to do the work. If this is the case, then it is a good idea to sit down
with the transcriber, if possible, and talk through the research and what the participants were talking
about.
All audio recordings should be transcribed verbatim, regardless of how intelligible the transcript may be
when it is read back. Lines of text should be numbered. Once the transcription is complete, the researcher
should read it while listening to the recording and do the following: correct any spelling or other errors;
anonymize the transcript so that the participant cannot be identified from anything that is said (e.g.,
names, places, significant events); insert notations for pauses, laughter, looks of discomfort; insert any
punctuation, such as commas and full stops (periods), and include any other contextual information that
might have affected the participant (e.g., temperature or comfort of the room).
Dealing with the transcription of a focus group is slightly more difficult, as multiple voices are involved.
One way of transcribing such data is to “tag” each voice (e.g., Voice A, Voice B). In addition, the focus
group will usually have 2 facilitators, whose respective roles will help in making sense of the data. While
one facilitator guides participants through the topic, the other can make notes about context and group
dynamics.
Reading between the lines
During the process, the researcher can begin to get a feel for the participant’s experience of the
phenomenon in question and can start to think about things that could be pursued in subsequent
interviews or focus groups (if appropriate). In this way, one participant’s narrative informs the next, and
the researcher can continue to interview until nothing new is being heard or, as it says in the text books,
“saturation is reached”. While continuing with the processes of coding and theming, it is important to
consider not just what the person is saying but also what they are not saying. For example, is a lengthy
pause an indication that the participant is finding the subject difficult, or is the person simply deciding
what to say? The aim of the whole process from data collection to presentation is to tell the participants’
stories using exemplars from their own narratives, thus grounding the research findings in the
participants’ lived experiences.
Smith9 suggested a qualitative research method known as interpretative phenomenological analysis,
which has 2 basic tenets: first, that it is rooted in phenomenology, attempting to understand the meaning
that individuals ascribe to their lived experiences, and second, that the researcher must attempt to interpret
this meaning in the context of the research. That the researcher has some knowledge and expertise in the
subject of the research means that he or she can have considerable scope in interpreting the participant’s
experiences. Larkin and others10 discussed the importance of not just providing a description of what
participants say. Rather, interpretative phenomenological analysis is about getting underneath what a
person is saying to try to truly understand the world from his or her perspective.
Coding
Once all of the research interviews have been transcribed and checked, it is time to begin coding. Field
notes compiled during an interview can be a useful complementary source of information to facilitate this
process, as the gap in time between an interview, transcribing, and coding can result in memory bias
regarding nonverbal or environmental context issues that may affect interpretation of data.
Coding refers to the identification of topics, issues, similarities, and differences that are revealed through
the participants’ narratives and interpreted by the researcher. This process enables the researcher to begin
to understand the world from each participant’s perspective. Coding can be done by hand on a hard copy
of the transcript, by making notes in the margin or by highlighting and naming sections of text.
One of the questions that arises about qualitative research relates to the reliability of the interpretation and
representation of the participants’ narratives. There are no statistical tests that can be used to check
reliability and validity as there are in quantitative research. However, work by Lincoln and
Guba11 suggests that there are other ways to “establish confidence in the ‘truth’ of the findings”. They call
this confidence “trustworthiness” and suggest that there are 4 criteria of trustworthiness: credibility
(confidence in the “truth” of the findings), transferability (showing that the findings have applicability in
other contexts), dependability (showing that the findings are consistent and could be repeated), and
confirmability (the extent to which the findings of a study are shaped by the respondents and not
researcher bias, motivation, or interest).
One way of establishing the “credibility” of the coding is to ask another researcher to code the same
transcript and then to discuss any similarities and differences in the 2 resulting sets of codes. This simple
act can result in revisions to the codes and can help to clarify and confirm the research findings.
Theming
Theming refers to the drawing together of codes from one or more transcripts to present the findings of
qualitative research in a coherent and meaningful way. For example, there may be examples across
participants’ narratives of the way in which they were treated in hospital, such as “not being listened to”
or “lack of interest in personal experiences”. These may be drawn together as a theme running through
the narratives that could be named “the patient’s experience of hospital care”. The importance of going
through this process is that at its conclusion, it will be possible to present the data from the interviews
using quotations from the individual transcripts to illustrate the source of the researchers’ interpretations.
Thus, when the findings are organized for presentation, each theme can become the heading of a section
in the report or presentation. Underneath each theme will be the codes, examples from the transcripts, and
the researcher’s own interpretation of what the themes mean. Implications for real life (e.g., the treatment
of people with chronic mental health problems) should also be given.
Data synthesis
In this final section of this paper, we describe some ways of drawing together or “synthesizing” research
findings to represent, as faithfully as possible, the meaning that participants ascribe to their life
experiences. This synthesis is the aim of the final stage of qualitative research. For most readers, the
synthesis of data presented by the researcher is of crucial significance—this is usually where “the story”
of the participants can be distilled, summarized, and told in a manner that is both respectful to those
participants and meaningful to readers. There are a number of ways in which researchers can synthesize
and present their findings, but any conclusions drawn by the researchers must be supported by direct
quotations from the participants. In this way, it is made clear to the reader that the themes under
discussion have emerged from the participants’ interviews and not the mind of the researcher.
Planning and Writing the Report
As has been suggested above, if researchers code and theme their material appropriately, they will
naturally find the headings for sections of their report. Qualitative researchers tend to report “findings”
rather than “results”, as the latter term typically implies that the data have come from a quantitative
source. The final presentation of the research will usually be in the form of a report or a paper and so
should follow accepted academic guidelines. In particular, the article should begin with an introduction,
including a literature review and rationale for the research. There should be a section on the chosen
methodology and a brief discussion about why qualitative methodology was most appropriate for the
study question and why one particular methodology (e.g., interpretative phenomenological analysis rather
than grounded theory) was selected to guide the research. The method itself should then be described,
including ethics approval, choice of participants, mode of recruitment, and method of data collection
(e.g., semistructured interviews or focus groups), followed by the research findings, which will be the
main body of the report or paper. The findings should be written as if a story is being told; as such, it is
not necessary to have a lengthy discussion section at the end. This is because much of the discussion will
take place around the participants’ quotes, such that all that is needed to close the report or paper is a
summary, limitations of the research, and the implications that the research has for practice. As stated
earlier, it is not the intention of qualitative research to allow the findings to be generalized, and therefore
this is not, in itself, a limitation.
Planning out the way that findings are to be presented is helpful. It is useful to insert the headings of the
sections (the themes) and then make a note of the codes that exemplify the thoughts and feelings of your
participants. It is generally advisable to put in the quotations that you want to use for each theme, using
each quotation only once. After all this is done, the telling of the story can begin as you give your voice to
the experiences of the participants, writing around their quotations. Do not be afraid to draw assumptions
from the participants’ narratives, as this is necessary to give an in-depth account of the phenomena in
question. Discuss these assumptions, drawing on your participants’ words to support you as you move
from one code to another and from one theme to the next. Finally, as appropriate, it is possible to include
examples from literature or policy documents that add support for your findings.

Conclusions
Qualitative research can help researchers to access the thoughts and feelings of research participants,
which can enable development of an understanding of the meaning that people ascribe to their
experiences. It can be used in pharmacy practice research to explore how patients feel about their health
and their treatment. Qualitative research has been used by pharmacists to explore a variety of questions
and problems (see the “Further Reading” section for examples). An understanding of these issues can
help pharmacists and other health care professionals to tailor health care to match the individual needs of
patients and to develop a concordant relationship. Doing qualitative research is not easy and may require
a complete rethink of how research is conducted, particularly for researchers who are more familiar with
quantitative approaches. There are many ways of conducting qualitative research, and this paper has
covered some of the practical issues regarding data collection, analysis, and management. Further reading
around the subject will be essential to truly understand this method of accessing peoples’ thoughts and
feelings to enable researchers to tell participants’ stories.
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4485510/