Thread by @SarahJTracy

One of the main things that stops good #qualitative research from being GREAT is that people get stuck during that ephemeral step between coding/thematizing and interpretation/claim-making.😩

Some musings and tips to help in this process:

As @ProfWay has pointed out, for most qual researchers, line-by-line coding is not necessary or appropriate on ALL of the study's empirical materials.

Choose a portion of your data (I recommend a maximum variation) for emergent coding, then check whether the codes are answering your RQ. If so, create a codebook & begin laying codes on top of the data. Do they work? Great. If not, go back & adapt. This is the iterative approach!

But don't stop there, because coding is only part of the puzzle.

Answering "what did we find" may be enough for an M.A. thesis or journalism story.

BUT most research articles and doctoral dissertations require interpretation and explanation.

This is where claim-making and "abstracting up" come in.

Two simple heuristics. Ask yourself:

"What can people know, explain, or illuminate in a new, better, or more nuanced way because of my research?"

"What is it that I have a case of?"

Answering these questions come neither solely from your codes/empirical materials nor from the past literature. They require abductive thinking and analytic creativity, tagging back and forth between the past literature and the current materials.

After playing with these questions, then play with making a claim. A claim is something that asserts the truth of something but is in doubt. An example: "Our research demonstrates that physical presence facilitates the communication of compassion." [thank you Tim Huffman]

In terms of an example of "what is this a case of", let's again take for example my research with Tim Huffman analyzing the conversation with a would-be school shooter.

Abstracting up, we could say, "This is a case of communicating compassion to someone who is angry."

Be bold at first in these activities. This will feel scary. You may wonder, can I actually say X from my study?

So then, go back, re-examine the data. Be critical of your claims & abstractions. Nuance, adapt. Talk to (kindly critical) others. Modify & rework.

Rinse. Repeat.

Moving from descriptive codes to explanatory and illuminating claims is one of the key distinguishing factors for making your #qualitative study resonate to multiple settings, and also increases the likelihood that others will take up, extend, and complicate your research.

With space, time and an attitude of playful invention, these interpretive activities are some of the most creative & FUN parts of qualitative research!

And remember that, by definition, an iterative process means no one gets it perfectly the first time around. 🤓