The Business of Research

Saldana has given us a sort of “chart of accounts” for coding qualitative data. I’m choosing this analogy because my brain is divided between the research world of graduate school and the financial world of business (yes, it’s tax time again!). In a chart of accounts, companies first list the assets of the business: cash on hand, buildings or land, accounts receivables, and equipment. These relate to the data in a qualitative research project. We have piles of documents, hours of audio, related theory, and the work of our predecessors – the assets of the project which we will use to turn a profit (yes, we do receive benefits for our research). Then, we list the liabilities of the company: loans payable, payroll liabilities (like taxes and accumulated benefits), customer advance payments and other accounts payable. This relates to the limitations of the research project. Here we have the goals and biases of our committee members, our presentation or journal audience, and generally some time constraints. We also have limitations of the study itself: our research frame, our ability to ask the right questions of our participants, the ability of our participants to understand themselves and their motivations and communicate that to us. – is this analogy getting old yet?

The “fun” in the research project and the chart of accounts comes in the three hundred and four hundred level accounts: the “retained earnings,” “income,” and “owners’ draws” in business or the results, findings, and conclusions in our research. But how we achieve these benefits in business or research relies on the “cost of goods sold,” which is the next level in our chart of accounts. Here we do all of the “work” of either the business or the research. Here we buy the raw materials that we will use to conduct our business, pay others to help us accomplish larger projects, and sometimes rent equipment that we use less frequently. Here is also where Saldana has his way with us: through the time, care and thoughtfulness of our coding and analysis.

Two little words captured my eye too often when reading the end of Saldana’s manual, “if needed.” Why would he give us this out and then go on for 35 pages demonstrating the purpose and benefits of second cycle coding? It’s like telling the business owner that preparing quarterly reports will provide them with valuable information and save them a lot of time at the end of the year, but this is not a requirement for successful operations. Some of the gems of this part of Saldana for me are:

“…creativity is essential to achieve new and hopefully striking perspectives about the data” (p. 150).

“Explaining ‘why’ something happens is a slippery task in qualitative inquiry (and even in some quantitative research). Gubrium & Hobstein (1997) put forward that ‘the whats of the social world always inform our understanding of the hows. …Taken together, these reciprocal what and how concerns offer a basis for answering a variety of why questions’ (p. 196)” (p. 154).

“The analytic memo is an uncensored and permissibly messy opportunity to let thoughts flow and ideas emerge” (p. 160).

A note from Clarke (2005):
“We need to address head-on the inconsistencies, irregularities, and downright messiness of the empirical world – not scrub it clean and dress it up for the special occasion of a presentation or a publication.” (p. 167)

Things I’m trying to understand:
Longitudinal coding – it doesn’t make sense to me to call qualitative research longitudinal. It is either redundant or conflated in my mind….By definition, we are not collecting a one-time survey result… this is something I need to think about some more – longitudinal data are implied in ethnography, anthropology, case studies, but I guess not all qualitative research… I can’t picture a longitudinal phenomenological study.

Things I really liked:
I really appreciate Saldana’s extra chapter on post-coding and pre-writing. This is another area where I sometimes rush or miss an opportunity for more insightful reflection. I particularly like the “Top Ten list” and the “touch test” and feel sure I will use one or both of these strategies as I put the finishing touches on an AERA paper that’s due for uploading next Monday! – I know, Saldana tells us to this pre-writing actually pre – the writing – it just came to me later…

Questions:
- What does it mean to say that a category “holds,” really? (p. 158)
- How is the idea of data “saturation” taken up by the various research traditions? (p. 161)
- How does Saldana’s clear passion for grounded theory fit with his pragmatic orientation?

Just as a business must pay for its expenses (you thought I forgot about this, didn't you); the researcher must wrestle with matters of ontology, epistemology, methodology, coding, categorizing, analysis, writing up the paper... The previous questions and musings will surely cause me to read more, think more, and continue to pay the bills for the rewards of understanding.