Notes on Making Meaning from Data

How are we going to display our data in a way that highlights the meanings we have found, so that our audience can engage with it effectively.

Methodology, Epistimology and Ontology

Ontology: the way you think (your beliefs about the world). Your place in the world is affecting your methods that you choose.

These will be guided by: Interviews

• I believe that people tell the truth
• I assume they will not tell lies
• This is my understanding of how the world works
• Nature of truth

Questions to consider:

• What is your research question?
• What are your methodological learnings? Interpretivistic? Positivistic?

N.B Neil Carey in 1st year - Reading and Researching Communication

• What procedures/methods/strategies have you adpoted for collecting the data which will inform your study?
• Have these procedures/methods been influenced by your proposed analytical methods?
• How will you represent that data?

Preparing for analysis

Make sure your data is an easy accessible form:

Quantative data: The number of people I selected for interviews (in my case observations). The number of themes I have generated and then think about how to display these themes. For example Microsoft Excel, input data and then go to insert and select; from here you can choose from a bar or a pie chart. Even think about making charts for the pre-data, data collected before the observation;

Sex - Male/Female

Age - Consider date of birth/years/age category

Family background/history

Summarise your statistics (keep raw data in appendix) With themes, note down the differences (variability). You then need to interpret these differences, why do they exist? what significance do they have for answering your initial research questions. (Frequency counts, thematic analysis, numerical results).

Qualitative data analysis - Interview transcripts, how do we interpret this data? See link on WebCT

General points to consider:

1. Reduce and Organise
2. Edit
3. Summarise
4. Code
5. Note
6. Conceptualise (try to see the bigger picture, this shows what happens)
7. Display
8. Interpret (how much of the transcript will you use?)
9. Think about how I am going to display my data (graphs, charts, transcripts)

Need a plausible ending, do not just say it's true, valid and reliable. Has it done/attempted to set out what you set out to do?