Interpreting and writing your qualitative findings

Description:

Introduction/Overview

It is essential that participants on this advanced course are already familiar with the principles and practice of thematic analysis, or have attended the SRA Qualitative Analysis course. This one-day advanced course covers the transition from interpretive thematic analysis to writing up qualitative findings. It shows how key themes can be extrapolated to form the structure of a written piece and presented with confidence and style. It reviews different formats of presentation, for different audiences, and includes examples from both academic and applied/policy research. Emphasis is on higher-level abstractions, achieving coherence, and writing in a confident qualitative style, expressing range and diversity as opposed to incidence and statistics.

Objectives

• to build on participants existing experience of analyzing qualitative data
• to show how main themes can be identified and conclusions drawn
• to demonstrate different ways of making and illustrating qualitative arguments
• to examine and review different styles and conventions in the presentation of qualitative findings

Topics

Focusing on developing explanations, drawing conclusions and writing up qualitative research findings, the course includes: • The challenges of qualitative reporting

• Addressing the audience
• Choosing a genre and style of output
• From notes and codes to coherence and insights
• Higher level abstractions
• Thinking about structure and style
• Writer’s block
• How write in richness and diversity
• How to write in interpretivism and reflexivity

Who will benefit

It is essential that participants are already familiar with the principles and practice of thematic analysis, including data management and categorisation, or have attended the SRA Qualitative Analysis course. Without this foundation, participants will not get the full benefit of the day. The course makes the assumption that participants understand the logic of qualitative research and analysis, at least to some extent.

Course tutor

Karen O'Reilly is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Loughborough University, and an affiliate of the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford. She has taught ethnographic and qualitative methods for over 20 years, including the Essex Summer School in Social Science Data Collection and Analysis, the Swiss Summer School in Social Science Methods, in Lugano; at the Universities of Aberdeen, Essex, Loughborough and Oxford; and at universities in Germany, Norway and Hong Kong. Her experience also includes being a Member of the Advisory Board of the NCRM biannual Research Methods Festival 2011-2012; and a member of the ESRC Peer Review College 2012 – 2016.

Karen is a highly experienced ethnographer whose many publications include two widely cited books on ethnography: Ethnographic Methods(Routledge, 2nd ed. 2012) and Key Concepts in Ethnography(Sage, 2009). She has also been instrumental in the design and evaluation of Masters level Research Methods courses and programmes in a number of universities. Karen provides short courses for the SRA on a regular basis.

Cost:

£202.50 for SRA members, £270 for non-members

Website and registration:

Region:

Greater London

Keywords:

Data Quality and Data Management , Qualitative Data Handling and Data Analysis, Research Management and Impact, Research Skills, Communication and Dissemination

Related publications and presentations from our eprints archive:

Data Quality and Data Management
Qualitative Data Handling and Data Analysis
Research Management and Impact
Research Skills, Communication and Dissemination

Back to the training database