From Analysis to Interpretation in Qualitative Studies

by Janet Salmons, PhD Research Community Manager for Sage Methodspace

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So what?

Data analysis can only get you so far - then you need to make sense of what you have found. This stage of interpretation can be challenging for qualitative researchers. You need to look at whether and how research questions were answered, and connect findings to the original purpose of the study. What theoretical contribution did the study make, what new insights were uncovered? What can future scholars build upon, and what can policy-makers or practitioners apply?

This collection of open-access articles from Sage journals offers examples to help you think about the strategy that will work help you think about how to put the pieces of your study together.

Davey, N. G., & Benjaminsen, G. (2021). Telling Tales: Digital Storytelling as a Tool for Qualitative Data Interpretation and Communication. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 20. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069211022529

Abstract. Academic journal articles often do not embody the rich accounts of long-term qualitative field work, while creative storytelling offers researchers an alternative way to reflect upon and communicate their findings. Digital storytelling is an emerging research methodology increasingly used to gather qualitative data but not so often to communicate results. As part of the ICT4COP research project, which investigates community policing and police-reform in post-conflict settings, we decided to try out digital storytelling to communicate some of the findings from the research. During the process, we observed that the digital storytelling methodology led researchers to approach their data differently. This article explores our adapted digital storytelling methodology. We draw similarities with ethnographic storytelling and highlight the digital storytelling methodology both as a means of dissemination, as well as an alternative approach to data interpretation for qualitative researchers.

Eakin, J. M., & Gladstone, B. (2020). “Value-adding” Analysis: Doing More With Qualitative Data. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 19. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406920949333

Abstract. Much qualitative research produces little new knowledge. We argue that this is largely due to deficits of analysis. Researchers too seldom venture beyond cataloguing data into pre-existing concepts and scouting for “themes,” and fail to exploit the distinctive powers of insight of qualitative methodology. The paper introduces a “value-adding” approach to qualitative analysis that aims to extend and enrich researchers’ analytic interpretive practices and enhance the worth of the knowledge generated. We outline key features of this form of analysis, including how it is constituted by principles of interpretation, contextualization, criticality, and the “creative presence” of the researcher. Using concrete examples from our own research, we describe some analytic “devices” that can free up and stretch a researcher’s analytic capacities, including putting reflexivity to work, treating everything as data, reading data for what is invisible, anomalous and “gestalt,” engaging in “generative” coding, deploying heuristics for theorizing, and recognizing writing as a key analytic activity. We argue that at its core, value-adding analysis is a scientific craft rather than a scientific formula, a creative assemblage of reality rather than a procedural determination of it. The researcher is the primary generative and synthesizing mechanism for transforming empirically observed data into the key products of qualitative research—concepts, accounts and explanations. The ultimate value of value-adding analysis resides in its ability to generate new knowledge, including not just the “discovery” of things heretofore unknown but also the re-conceptualization of what is already known, and, importantly, the reframing and reconstitution of the research problem.

Scott, K. W., & Howell, D. (2008). Clarifying Analysis and Interpretation in Grounded Theory: Using a Conditional Relationship Guide and Reflective Coding Matrix. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 7(2), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690800700201

Abstract. Although qualitative methods, grounded theory included, cannot be reduced to formulaic procedures, research tools can clarify the process. The authors discuss two instruments supporting grounded theory analysis and interpretation using two examples from doctoral students. The conditional relationship guide contextualizes the central phenomenon and relates categories linking structure with process. The reflective coding matrix serves as a bridge to the final phase of grounded theory analysis, selective coding and interpretation, and, ultimately, to substantive theory generation.

Tan, H., Wilson, A., & Olver, I. (2009). Ricoeur’s Theory of Interpretation: An Instrument for Data Interpretation in Hermeneutic Phenomenology. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 8(4), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690900800401

Abstract. Heidegger's hermeneutic phenomenology, although providing an appropriate philosophical foundation for research in the social sciences that seeks to investigate the meaning of lived experience, does not provide clarity of process, making it difficult to assign the degree of rigor to the work demanded in an era dominated by the positivist paradigm. Ricoeur (1981) further developed both Heidegger's and Gadamer's ideas, in the areas of method and interpretation of hermeneutic phenomenological research, in a direction that has addressed this difficulty. In this article the authors outline Ricoeur's theory, including three levels of data analysis, describe its application to the interpretation of data, and discuss two apparent contradictions in his theory. Ricoeur's theory of interpretation, as a tool for the interpretation of data in studies whose philosophical underpinning is hermeneutic phenomenology, deserves consideration by human sciences researchers who seek to provide a rigorous foundation for their work.

Thorne, S., Kirkham, S. R., & O’Flynn-Magee, K. (2004). The Analytic Challenge in Interpretive Description. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 3(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690400300101

Abstract. The past decade has witnessed remarkable evolution within qualitative health research as scholars have moved beyond initial adherence to the specific methods of phenomenology, grounded theory, and ethnography to develop methods more responsive to the experience-based questions of interest to a practice-based discipline. Interpretive description (Thorne, Reimer Kirkham, & MacDonald-Emes, 1997) is an inductive analytic approaches designed to create ways of understanding clinical phenomena that yield applications implications. In this article, we further develop our understanding of this methodological alternative by elaborating on the objective and mechanisms of its analytic processes and by expanding our consideration of its interpretive products.

Tight, M. (2023). Saturation: An Overworked and Misunderstood Concept? Qualitative Inquiry, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/10778004231183948

Abstract. All qualitative researchers are familiar with the idea of saturation: that researchers should continue to collect and/or analyze data until nothing new is being added to their arguments or conclusions. Saturation is, however, used and understood in a variety of ways, often appearing as an unevidenced and dogmatic statement seeking to justify that a piece of research is complete. This article explores the application of the idea of saturation in qualitative research, noting its association with grounded theory and the particular interest taken in it by health researchers. It concludes that it is both a misunderstood and an overworked concept.

Tohar, V., Asaf, M., Kainan, A., & Shahar, R. (2007). An Alternative Approach for Personal Narrative Interpretation: The Semiotics of Roland Barthes. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 6(3), 57–70. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690700600306

Abstract. In this paper the authors propose Roland Barthes's analytical method, which appears in his classic work S/Z (1974), as a new way of analyzing personal stories. The five codes that are described in the book are linked to the domains of poetics, language, and culture, and expose facets that are embedded in the deep structure of narratives. These codes are helpful in revealing findings with regard to the development of the professional careers of teacher educators.

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