Handling Qualitative Data : A Practical Guide (Second Edition)

Abstract

When a senior academic drew my attention to this recent edition, it reminded me of how much more information is available now about collecting and analysing qualitative data.  Less than a decade ago, when undertaking PhD studies in communication in Australia, there were few books available on this topic of Qualitative Research Analysis.  Even the references published (e.g. Denzin and Lincoln 2000) included much basic argument or philosophical analysis that remained at a very general level.  Students were left to work through the terms and semantics in order to develop a practical combination of analytical methods, aimed at solving their specific problem.   I was fortunate to have advice from three senior people with varying perspectives  and each contributed important lessons – relating to survey design, encoding, summarizing and presenting data as well as critical analysis and statistical testing.  Now that I am in a position of supervising and advising graduate students, I find it much easier to emphasize key points and be able to refer a student to a handbook like this.