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Critical Thinking Using Qualitative Data and Software

Part Two– Results and Conclusions

By Wendy Olsen

2014

Methods@Manchester Workshop

Aiming at PhD Students and Researchers Who Want to Disseminate Arguments

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AIM 3) NVIVO SKILLS IN WILLIAMSON ROOM 3.59 COMPUTER CLUSTERPowerpoint presentation on NVIVO methods.

Practical Exercise 1: Code your project in NVIVO – just 3 codes please.2: view coding stripes.3: Look at models and coding in three sample NVIVO projects.4: add a model to your own project.

Concluding Practical Activities:5. Overall and document-wise word count6. Demonstration of matrix query

AIM 4) Integrate our analysis of the sample transcript (or your own data sample, if you bring one) with what we learned about social-science argumentation.

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Critical Thinking• Parse the logic of a sample piece of writing.

• The steps should be related, and coherent.

• The conclusion should rest on the argument.

• Complex arguments use data as evidence. P= Premises

R = Reasoning (D=Data)

C = Conclusions

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An Argument …

• Is an extended set of sentences about one thing.

• Has a coherent relationship among the sentences.

• Is coherent as a whole.

• Leads toward its own conclusion.• I have stipulated this definition.

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Example 1 (refers to Ethnic Labour interview)

• P1: The woman speaks genuinely about her beliefs and attitudes.

• P2: The husband, coming as a boy from a Germany background, is not holding up a typical Pakistan culture

• R1: Data says that she believes she is having an atypical marriage, because he does not have typical traditional Pakistan-associated attitudes.

• R2: Data also shows she has a typical gender division of household labour.

• R3: Data also shows she does not disapprove of the female doing washing and ironing.

• C1: Her marriage is typical and traditional for Pakistani-origin Muslim although her beliefs are more egalitarian

• C2: The one exception is if she is absent, at which time her husband will ‘get one with it’, taking up the female gendered roles at home.

• C3: Cooperativeness is valued by both their families and each of them.5

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Example 2 (refers to NVIVO project on microfinance, called “Arguments…

nvp”)• P1: The women speak genuinely about their experiences in groups.

• P2: The banker speaks genuinely and knows bank views about groups.

• R1: Data says that the characterisation of women in self-help groups as ‘poor’ is contested: manager says they are nonpoor hence good.

– D1: Data from village women shows they also discriminate by literacy.

– D2: They focus on voice and leadership issues, and women leaders.

• R2: The impact of village groups depends on who are members.

• R3: The impact of groups is contested. Women in the groups feel their agency is mediated by their leaders.

• R4: Leadership among women inculcates more public assertiveness.

• R5: If public assertiveness then rules will be followed, e.g. legal rules.

• C1: Groups cause more rule-following. [more justice? Accountability?]

• C2: Groups that include leaders are more able to enforce rule-following.

• *C3: Banker thinks that non-poor have better impact. “Impact”=profit.6

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The word cloud is purely descriptive

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The improved approach will consider differences of

opinion• Analysis, analysis, analysis

• From the pro-profit discourse, the microfinance may be a good/bad bet, or one may want to target training at the profit-makers, or try to improve the non-profit-oriented women…? Normatively neoliberal in underlying values.

• From the women’s own pro-agency discourse, we found that the micro-finance groups were enabling VOICE of LEADERS and this had little to do with Profit. Normatively oriented to human rights and justice, not profit.

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The NVIVO ‘Coding Tree’ Approach Tends to Clump all Text into a Single Discourse

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Two Discourses Compared

Analyse the women’s first

• Agency of women• Agency of leaders• Creation of leadership

skills• Change of abilities during

membership• Normative underpinnings• Labels and tropes indicate

what typically happens

Analyse several bank managers’ discourse next

• We saw a strong focus on profit through several interviews

• Some mentioned women’s empowerment too

• The one from Mysore Bank was not pro-poor, focused on superiority of non-poor

• Was this general?/isable?

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Warranted Arguments

• In a warranted argument,– Conclusions are not just beliefs,– Premises are consistent and coherent,– Reasoning is sound,– Verbs used are relevant and appropriate,– Logic is used (various types), and– The conclusion would be false if any of the P’s or

R’s are false. Use Triangulation!!– * on the previous slide, ‘better impact’ rested

upon unspecified Premises and Reasoning about ‘impact’

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Planning our presentations for 3-4 pm

• SOME PAIRS OF STUDENTS CAN MAKE A SHORT PRESENTATION -- one slide with your research question. One slide with your Model or a code list. One slide with your argument 5 minutes in all. VOLUNTEERS: (Wendy)

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Helpful hints for Models

• These are used for brainstorming.• You place CODES here as Project Items.• They have CONNECTORS. Add more of these.• You add PROJECT ITEM >> NOTE to make your own

freestyle handwritten notes about the arguments.– Lay arguments. – no theory– Your expert arguments. - invoke theory

– Please try to move toward more advanced, sophisticated arguments similar to a PhD or Article.

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What do qualitative data represent?

• The texts are NOT a mirror of society.• Comments are often contested.• Let different voices stand out.

• People use metaphors and analogies based upon real experience.

• They also use common lay idioms.• The meaning has to be discerned.• TROPES are interesting, e.g. ‘they do charity’

translates as ‘they are not poor nor degraded’.

• Your knowledge grows with qualitative experiences.

– Texts are empirical evidence.– Be scientific.– You can do deconstruction about

the underlying situation and still be scientific.

• Triangulation improves your mental map of the scene

• Seek valid conclusions• Causal analysis is important• The analysis of meanings is

important, too.• You are doing induction.• You are also doing retroduction

when you triangulate.• Triangulation makes reference to

common cultural knowledge, other sources, survey data etc. for facts and background, and for meanings.

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Thank you.P.S. Something to read by Wendy Olsen on

ethics . . . Olsen, Wendy, (2009) “Moral Political Economy and

Moral Reasoning About Rural India: Four Theoretical Schools Compared”, Cambridge

Journal of Economics, http://cje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/33/5/875.pdf,

33:5, 875-902.