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Critical Thinking Using Qualitative Data and Software

(Part One)

By Wendy Olsen

2014

Methods@Manchester Workshop

Aiming at PhD Students and Researchers Who Want to Disseminate Arguments

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AIM 1) To introduce ‘critical thinking’ to your academic writing. Class Exercise 1:

We parse the arguments out (break them up into steps).

AIM 2) Set up (hand) coding on a simple transcript. Simple NVIVO lecture.Class exercise 2: Look at the transcript that is sent as an email

attachment. Code 1 page with retrieval codes. Then code with a second layer of analytical codes.

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) (rejoin in Williamson Room 2.05)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• C = Conclusions• R = Reasoning and D = Data or evidence.

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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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Exercise 1.–In Pairs: Share textual samples.

• Write down two ‘codes’ which are theme names, so that the material in this sample could be RETRIEVED.

• Write down two ‘codes’ which are analytical, ie. Perhaps they relate to theory, such as agency, neoliberal discourse, power, or other.

• The theme is going to develop into an argument. You are not merely descriptive in summarising your findings. Induction.

• See my example coding on ethnicity.

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Conclusion of Exercise 1

• Step 1 : simple, descriptive codes.

• Step 2 : analytical codes, axial codes.• These invoke theory.

• Step 3 : develop an argument and test it out, work on it. Code more…

– What are the people’s lay arguments? (See Sayer)– What is your expert argument, over-arching?

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Exercise 2.

• Please read Appendix 1 sample of writing. Work out the main lines of the argument.Work together.– what are the ‘premises’, taken-for-granted

assumptions?– what is the assertion or theme of the short

piece?– what reasoning is used to link evidence to

this theme? Write brief notes.

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Gist of the Argument (Schools Online Piece, Appendix 1)

• P1. Schools teach kids to develop arguments.• P2. Teachers teach kids.• P3. Teachers choose and use resources.• P4. Arguments are of different quality levels.• D: - no data given. E: evidence that one can

gather tables and numbers about marriage is offered, but not linked into the argument well.

• R1: If data, then arguments are better.• C1: If data, then teachers can teach better.

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Crucial Linking Reasoning:

• P5. Students choose data to use.• Unestablished P6. Arguments are of higher quality level if they

use data to support their inner claims.• R2. Teachers teach kids to develop arguments better IFF they

use data both to teach, and in the arguments.• R3. Teachers who choose and use data resources of numeric

and survey types online offer better data choices to students.– R4: Because teachers and students can gather tables and

numbers about marriage, students can link data well into their arguments. OR

– R5: IFF teachers and students can link data well into arguments, they can gather sensible tables and numbers about marriage.

C1: If data, then teachers can teach better. (NOT ESTABLISHED)• C2: IFF R5 then teachers with data can teach better than

teachers who do not use data.

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Exercise 2, Summary

• Some premises were not well argued for.

• Some reasoning was missing from the argument.

• The original conclusion rested heavily on a belief in an unstated Premise.

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Lecture 1. (Morning)

• Better and worse ARGUMENTS.– An argument is a theme, and it has to have a counter-

theme (the ‘antithesis’).

• Good arguments might have:– Better ethics than worse arguments, OR– More consistent premises, OR– Consideration of data that might falsify a claim, OR– Coverage of things that are very well known to the

writer.– See Bowell and Kemp, Critical Thinking, London:

Routledge, 3rd ed., 2010. pg 96.

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Parsing Arguments

• To parse means to break up into small chunks.TO PARSE . MEANS . TO BREAK . UP .

INTO . SMALL . CHUNKS.

Verb definition synonym-verb object

• Break up arguments into P, R, D, E, C’s– Fisher, A. (1988). The Logic of Real Arguments.

Cambridge, NY and Sydney, Cambridge Univ. Press.

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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.

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Data in Warranted Arguments

• Premises• Data … which verifies findings . . .

– After the findings are rewritten back into the data sections! But you did not know in advance what you would find. Discoveries. Retroduction.

• Reasoning . . . Which uses data! Depends on it! Needs it! Develops / analyses it!

• Conclusion(s) (Danermark et al 2001)• Beware of verificationism. Hence use hypotheses.• Or use claims e.g. ‘it is claimed that X Y’

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The Duhem-Quine Paradox

• Willard Van Orman Quine (June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) – Edgar Pierce Chair of Philosophy at Harvard, 1956–

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• Two Dogmas of Empiricism (1951)• Assume M1 M2 to test whether X causes Y.

– (M is a measurement method which has premises.)

• By assuming M1 and M2 you bias the case toward accepting that X causes something, and that Y is caused, and thus that X causes Y or something like that. This is verification.

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Smart’s Paper

• Premise: gay couples who are doing civil registration agree upon what kind of ceremony and practices/roles they want.

• Premise: social traditions of weddings influence the way the UK gay people do civil registrations. (Also C1)

• D, R’s are about HOW they do it.• (An even better argument would be about WHY they

do it that way. See “practices” literature.)• Conclusions: 4 types of gay marriage in UK. The

description offered here assumes no tension. Anodyne.

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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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Basic Functions of NVIVO for Qualitative Analysis

By Wendy Olsen, University of Manchester

Aiming at PhD Students and Researchers Who Want to Disseminate Arguments

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Where to find self-training elements

• Click the blue ? circle icon to get help.• It wants to go onto internet to get help area.• This has a SEARCH option.• GLOSSARY is helpful too.• TUTORIALS is a set of links to online video

tutorials…

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Lecture – These are key readings for NVIVO

users:• Gibbs, G.R. (2008) Analysing Qualitative Data,

London: Sage. Has chapters on all topics at a high level of abstraction, yet also covers details such as transcription and digitising the textual data.

• It involves “CAQDAS” and covers NVivo, MAXqda 2 and Atlas.ti 5.2.

• Lewins, A. and Silver, C. (2007) Using Software in Qualitative Research: A Step-by-Step Guide, London: Sage. Cover several programs including principally NVivo, MAXqda 2 and Atlas.ti 5.2.

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Very Concise Sources:

• Cook, S. (1999). "Methodological aspects of the encompassing principle." Journal of Economic Methodology 6: 61-78.

• AND chapters 2-3 of:• Sayer, A. (1992 (orig. 1984)). Method in

Social Science: A Realist Approach. London, Routledge.

• OR two chapters from Smith, M., ed. 1998, Social Science in Question.

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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.