In the last blog post, we looked at creating archives of qualitative data that can be used by other researchers (or yourself in the future) for secondary analysis. In that article I postulated that secondary data analysis could make collecting new data a rarer, and expensive event. However, some (including Dr Susanne Friese) pointed out that as the social world is always changing, there is a constant need to collect new data. I totally agree

  Last month, Quirkos was invited to a one day workshop in New York on archiving qualitative data. The event was hosted by Syracuse University, and you can read a short summary of the event here. This links neatly into the KWALON led initiative to create a common standard for interchange of coded data between qualitative software packages. The eventual aim is to develop a standardised file format for qualitative data, which not only

There is a lot of concern that qualitative analysis software distances people from their data. Some say that it encourages reductive behaviour, prevents deep reading of the data, and leads to a very quantified type of qualitative analysis (eg Savin-Baden and Major 2013).   I generally don’t agree with these statements, and other qualitative bloggers such as Christina Silver and Kristi Jackson have written responses to critics of

  The results of the US elections this week show a surprising trend: modern quantitative polling keeps failing to predict the outcome of major elections.   In the UK this is nothing new, in both the 2015 general election and the EU referendum polling failed to predict the outcome. In 2015 the polls suggested very close levels of support for Labour and the Conservative party but on the night the Conservatives won a significant

In the last blog article I looked at some of the justifications for choosing focus groups as a method in qualitative research. This week, we will focus on some practical tips to make sure that focus groups run smoothly, and to ensure you get good engagement from your participants.   1. Make sure you have a helper! It’s very difficult to run focus groups on your own. If you are wanting to layout the room, greet people, deal with