Circles and feedback loops in qualitative research

The best qualitative research forms an iterative loop, examining, and then re-examining. There are multiple reads of data, multiple layers of coding, and hopefully, constantly improving theory and insight into the underlying lived world. During the research process it is best to try to be in a constant state of feedback with your data, and theory.

During your literature review, you may have several cycles through the published literature, with each pass revealing a deeper network of links. You will typically see this when you start going back to ‘seminal’ texts on core concepts from older publications, showing cycles of different interpretations and trends in methodology that are connected. You can see this with paradigm trends like social captial, neo-liberalism and power. It’s possible to see major theorists like Foucault, Chomsky and Butler each create new cycles of debate in the field, building up from the previous literature.

A research project will often have a similar feedback loop between the literature and the data, where the theory influences the research questions and methodology, but engagement with the real ‘folk world’ provides challenge to interpretations of data and the practicalities of data collection. Thus the literature is challenged by the research process and findings, and so a new reading of the literature is demanded to correlate or challenge new interpretations.

Thus it’s a mistake to think that a literature review only happens at the beginning of the research process, it is important to engage with theory again, not just at the end of a project when drawing conclusions and writing up, but during the analysis process itself. Especially with qualitative research, the data will rarely neatly fit with one theory or another, but demand a synthesis or new angle on existing research.

The coding process is also like this, in that it usually requires many cycles through the data. After reading one source, it can feel like the major themes and codes for the project are clear, and will set the groundwork for the analytic framework. But what if you had started with another source? Would the codes you would have created have been the same? It’s easy to either get complacent with the first codes you start with, worrying that the coding structure gets too complicated if there you keep creating new nodes.

However, there will always be sources which contain unique data or express different opinions and experiences that don’t chime with existing codes. And what if this new code actually fits some of the previous data better? You would need to go back to previously analysed data sources and explore them again. This is why most experts will recommend multiple tranches through the data, not just to be consistent and complete, but because there is a feedback loop in the codes and themes themselves. Once you have a first coding structure, the framework itself can be examined and reinterpreted, looking for groupings and higher level interpretations. I’ve talked about this more in this blog article about qualitative coding.

Quirkos is designed to keep researchers deeply embedded in this feedback process, with each coding event subtly changing the dynamics of the coding structure. Connections and coding is shown in real time, so you can always see what is happening, what is being coded most, and thus constantly challenge your interpretation and analysis process.

Queries, questions and sub-set analysis should also be easy to run and dynamic, because good qualitative researchers shouldn’t only do interrogation and interpretation of the data at the end of the analysis process, it should be happening throughout it. That way surprises and uncertainties can be identified early, and new readings of the data illuminate these discoveries.

In a way, qualitative analysis is never done: and it is not usually a linear process. Even when project practicalities dictate an end point, a coded research project in software like Quirkos sits on your hard drive, awaiting time for secondary analysis, or for the data to be challenged from a different perspective and research question. And to help you when you get there, your data and coding bubbles will immediately show you where you left off – what the biggest themes where, how they connected, and allow you to go to any point in the text to see what was said.

And you shouldn’t need to go back and do retraining to use the software again. I hear so many stories of people who have done training courses for major qualitative data analysis software, and when it comes to revisiting their data, the operations are all forgotten. Now, Quirkos may not have as many features as other software, but the focus on keeping things visual and in plain sight means that these should comfortably fit under your thumb again, even after not using it for a long stretch.

So download the free trial of Quirkos today, and see how it’s different way of presenting the data helps you continuously engage with your data in fresh ways. Once you start thinking in circles, it’s tough to go back!