Qualitative Interviewing and Data Analysis

About

The first half of this course is designed to encourage students to develop a critical stance to their own research practice and the work of others. Alongside conceptual and theoretical discussions in class, students will be obtaining hands‐on practice gathering qualitative interview data, particularly using digitally mediated methods.

The second half of this course is designed to give students experience analysing qualitative data, and to give them a conceptual understanding of the reasons for using qualitative analytic approaches, the limits of the techniques they will be using, and the opportunities and challenges unique to qualitative social research methods and the Internet.

 Learning Objectives

• Understand when we may want to choose qualitative (digital) research interviews for our research projects
• Acquire interviewing skills in a range of digitally mediated settings and learn how one can address the ethical issues and potential challenges that emerge when conducting digital interviews
• Learn how to describe their methodological choices as well as to evaluate the quality of interview material in qualitative research publications they come across.
• Use qualitative analysis software to assist in organising and managing qualitative data.
• Develop their analysis skills and learn how qualitative data analysis works in practice.
• Develop coding schemes corresponding to the theoretical orientation, research questions and analytical strategy of their final assignment for the course.
• Understand how qualitative data can be used to critique quantitative research and to develop theory.