Finance
QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS APPROACHES TO QUALITATIVE DATA:
WHY, WHEN AND HOW - Savitri Abeyasekera
Statistical Services Centre, University of Reading, P.O. Box 240,
Harry Pitt Building, Whiteknights Rd., Reading RG6 6FN, UK.
Phone 0118 931 8459, e-mail s.abeyasekera@rdg.ac.uk
1.
Introduction
In many research studies involving the use of participatory tools, much of the information gathered is of a qualitative nature. Some of this will contribute to addressing specific research questions, while other parts provide a general understanding of peoples’ livelihoods and constraints. The aim of this paper is to focus on the former. The paper concentrates on some quantitative analysis approaches that can be applied to qualitative data. A major objective is to demonstrate how qualitative information gathered during PRA work can be analysed to provide conclusions that are applicable to a wider target population. Appropriate sampling is of course essential for this purpose, and it will be assumed in what follows that any sampling issues have been satisfactorily addressed to allow generalization of results from the data analysis to be meaningful.
Most emphasis in this paper will be given to the analysis of data that can be put in the form of ranks, but some analysis approaches suitable for other types of qualitative data will also be considered. The general questions of why and when are discussed first, but the main focus will be on issues relating to the how component of data analysis. It is not the intention to present implementation details of any statistical analysis procedures, nor to discuss how output resulting from the application of statistical software could be interpreted. The aim is to highlight a few types of research questions that can be answered on the basis of qualitative information, to discuss the types of data format that will lend themselves readily to appropriate data analysis procedures and to emphasise how the data analysis can be
WHY, WHEN AND HOW - Savitri Abeyasekera
Statistical Services Centre, University of Reading, P.O. Box 240,
Harry Pitt Building, Whiteknights Rd., Reading RG6 6FN, UK.
Phone 0118 931 8459, e-mail s.abeyasekera@rdg.ac.uk
1.
Introduction
In many research studies involving the use of participatory tools, much of the information gathered is of a qualitative nature. Some of this will contribute to addressing specific research questions, while other parts provide a general understanding of peoples’ livelihoods and constraints. The aim of this paper is to focus on the former. The paper concentrates on some quantitative analysis approaches that can be applied to qualitative data. A major objective is to demonstrate how qualitative information gathered during PRA work can be analysed to provide conclusions that are applicable to a wider target population. Appropriate sampling is of course essential for this purpose, and it will be assumed in what follows that any sampling issues have been satisfactorily addressed to allow generalization of results from the data analysis to be meaningful.
Most emphasis in this paper will be given to the analysis of data that can be put in the form of ranks, but some analysis approaches suitable for other types of qualitative data will also be considered. The general questions of why and when are discussed first, but the main focus will be on issues relating to the how component of data analysis. It is not the intention to present implementation details of any statistical analysis procedures, nor to discuss how output resulting from the application of statistical software could be interpreted. The aim is to highlight a few types of research questions that can be answered on the basis of qualitative information, to discuss the types of data format that will lend themselves readily to appropriate data analysis procedures and to emphasise how the data analysis can be