Thread by @raulpacheco

Qualitative research methods nerd thread incoming.

I just read Dr. Sally Thorne @salthorne 's excellent editorial in the journal @NursingInquiry , "Beyond Theming: Making Qualitative Studies Matter" #Free2DownloadAndRead onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.11…

As usual, I HAVE THINGS TO SAY

Dr. Thorne points out to the canonical Strauss and Corbin's grounded theory work. That's how I was trained. That's where I cut my teeth. I learned to code and do thematic analysis with Strauss and Corbin, then I read the work of @ginnybraun and @drvicclarke, now canonical too.

I teach my students and research assistants how to do coding and theming. I use Johnny Saldaña's work on coding raulpacheco.org/2019/05/the-co… and Ryan and Bernard on themes journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/15… and Braun and Clarke on thematic analysis tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.119…

And herein is the rub

Herein lies the rub: a number of qualitative scholars and educators fail to teach the analytical part of doing qualitative research. In her editorial, @salthorne aptly points to the fact that we teach how to obtain qualitative data on the field, textually, but then we need...

... to teach HOW TO DO ANALYSIS. Dropping categories and themes, as Thorne (2020) rightfully says, and bits and pieces of textual evidence to support our writing DOES NOT MEAN YOU'RE DOING ANALYSIS.

We need to go further, Thorne says, and I agree.

TEACH ANALYTICAL WRITING.

One reason why I am so insistent on teaching my students how to do Description and Analysis raulpacheco.org/2017/05/distin… and why they should go beyond merely describing is my frustration with how qualitative methods are sometimes taught (not rigorously enough). raulpacheco.org/2019/12/on-the…

.@salthorne says, and I quote:

"for a qualitative product to be worthy of publication, I believe that it must demonstrate that it extends beyond naming categories and themes and reporting on patterns."

YES.

We can and must show patterns, trajectories, developments, insights

Again, @salthorne:

"Telling your reader that you found three themes and fourteen categories and then going on to briefly describe them and provide a text excerpt example of each is hopelessly insufficient."

Yes, not enough to add to our understanding and the literature,

Anyhow, thanks Dr. Sally Thorne @salthorne for articulating so many of the things I think about and feel in such a clear and succinct manner.

And while I have you all here, remember: QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IS EMPIRICAL raulpacheco.org/2018/09/qualit…

Related - my editorial in IJQM.

Writing Field Notes and Using Them to Prompt Scholarly Writing - Raul Pacheco-Vega, 2019 journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…

One recommendation: as you write your field notes, remember to capture themes, codes AND patterns/trajectories.

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