Received: from mailhub.dartmouth.edu (mailhub.dartmouth.edu [129.170.16.6]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.8.5/8.8.4/CNS-4.1p-nh) with ESMTP id LAA17583 for ; Wed, 18 Nov 1998 11:30:50 -0700 (MST) Received: from prancer.Dartmouth.EDU (prancer.dartmouth.edu [129.170.208.2]) by mailhub.dartmouth.edu (8.8.8+DND/8.8.8) with SMTP id NAA16961 for ; Wed, 18 Nov 1998 13:30:41 -0500 (EST) Message-id: <14213738@prancer.Dartmouth.EDU> Date: 18 Nov 98 13:30:40 EST From: David.M.Bott@Dartmouth.EDU (David M. Bott) Reply-To: david.m.bott@Dartmouth.EDU Subject: Re: Software for Qualitative Data To: MedSoc@csf.colorado.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Disposition: inline --- You wrote: All data processing devices "enhance" the data in some way, that is structure or corrupt it, and thus pervert it validity as your view of the world. Leave the computer staff alone and get involved with your own "data". Russell Russell Kelly Department of Health Studies University of Central Lancashire --- end of quote --- I am confused by the above statement. If I understand the statement, then without using a computer, there is no "processing," no "structuring," and no possibility that your "view of the world" will not "pervert" the validity? I find that to be somewhat naive. I find it difficult to believe that the "data" are not processed or structured. Aren't the nurse conversations written down? With or without a computer that transcription is a "processing" and it requires considerable skill in correctly capturing pauses, non-words, and the like. Even reading the verbatim transcript or listening to the audio recordings requires that you understand the idioms and slang. Even if one just reads the transcripts, certain passages come to your attention and the reader often takes notes. This would be a version of structuring the data. What comes to one readers' attention is very likely to be different than what comes to a different reader's attention. The reason for these differences are likely to be based on the readers' different views of the world. In short, even sans computer, qualitative researchers use "devices" to structure the data. The key is to understand what kind of structuring occurs, regardless of the type of device, and how it affects your analysis. I've gone quite far enough. I'm sure you did not mean to espouse a position quite so simple as I have portrayed. I only reacted because my Master's thesis was based on a qualitative analysis and I went in with the idea that I could just "take notes" in an unstructured way and that themes and analyses would be derived purely from the data. Nothing was further from the truth! I had to spend additional research time actually trying to record data which were relevant to the questions I had posed in my proposal! No amount of reading or jumping in up to my elbows in reams of notes or verbatim transcripts would have produced a decent analysis without structuring the data and accounting for my view of the world. If I learned one thing in obtaining my M.S., it was that lesson. Forgive me for my vehemence. Dave ___________________________________________________ David M. Bott, Ph.D. AHCPR Post Doctorate Fellow david.m.bott@dartmouth.edu Center for Evaluative Clinical Sciences phone: 603/650-1958 7251 Strasenburgh Hall, Rm 313B fax: 603/650-1935 Dartmouth Medical School Hanover, NH 03755-3863