Abstract
How Qualitative Analysis Happens: Moving Beyond “Themes Emerged” demystifies data analysis. This book concerns the details of analytical decision making and processes that are often absent in the methodology section of scholarly publications. Humble and Radina address these “vague representations of qualitative analysis processes” by providing a space to clarify “misunderstandings and misconceptions about the nature of the methodology” that often occur because of journal length limitations (p. x).
In “Introduction: Real Stories of How This Volume Happened,” Humble and Radina describe their impetus for designing the book, how they approached authors, and how they selected articles. They provide details regarding the process and rationale for each section (Section I: Stories; Section II: Dialogues). In their description of the book’s construction, the editors model what is sometimes missing from the methodology in qualitative manuscripts, making the introduction a meta-methods section for a book on methods.
Section I, Stories, has 13 chapters in which authors recount the analytical decisions and methodological processes they undertook in their (already published) journal articles/chapters/books. Section II, Dialogues (four chapters), presents conversations among three to five contributors regarding topics emerging across multiple chapters like arts-based research (chapter 14) and data displays (chapter 17). Research topics include still births, sexual health, intimate relationships, cancer survivors, fathering, race, gender, housing, low-income families, cohabitation, assisted living, and gay homeless youth. Methodologies include autoethnography, phenomenology, ethnography, and grounded theory. Approaches include poetic, indigenous, thematic and content analysis, and listening guides. Each chapter concludes with “Key Works” where authors provide citations and explanations for how each work influenced their process.
The strengths of the book reside in the contributor perspectives, diversity of research topics and participant representation, and range of methodological processes. Chapter 15 offers a “Dialogue About Reflexivity” in which five authors converse about reflexivity and positionality: How researchers handled their social locations and personal experiences with the study’s topic, and responsibility to the data and readers. Allen’s participants were uninterested in her story but preferred to share their own, reminding her “to be a more thoughtful listener and to keep [her] voice at a minimum” (p. 218). Allen also noted emotion is difficult to separate from her work. To decrease the interruptions caused by her own emotional responses, she journals “fiercely throughout the process, because [her] own emotional reactions are a constant intrusion on reading through transcripts and sorting through data” (p. 218). This provided insight as to how we, as qualitative researchers, might better position ourselves in our work—acknowledging that it is natural to emotionally respond when our research is personally meaningful. Several authors admitted their research was an extension of their identities, a point lost in many methodological texts seeking scientific neutrality and objectivity.
The book’s weaknesses primarily reside in the accessibility to material that the book is dependent upon. To access the original studies discussed in Section I, the reader must visit the book on the publisher’s website and navigate to the “Resources” tab to view a PDF with links to the primary sources. The intention is that each chapter reflects on the methods used in the primary source and should be able to stand alone without needing to read the original source. However, in some cases, it would be helpful for the reader to read larger portions of the original study in tandem with the book chapter. Although the reader has the necessary information to locate the primary source, they must go out of their way to do so. Additionally, while tables are displayed in the book, figures are not, causing a significant distraction to the reader. To fully engage with the content of each chapter, the reader must again visit the “Resources” tab and download the relevant figure. This results in either not accessing this material (decreasing understanding/appreciation of the methods) or disengaging from the printed book to access files online.
Another weakness is the underdevelopment of Section II. These conversations are meaningful and informative, but often fall short on the promise of what could be. For reference, Section II is 21 of nearly 240 pages. Further developing existing topics or adding new topics would provide a more thorough experience (e.g., learning how researchers developed their methodological expertise over time). As some authors noted, so much of learning qualitative analysis is through doing. It is part of what makes qualitative analysis daunting for novice researchers. Understanding how authors got to where they are—including the trials and tribulations of their research journeys—might have made a good addition.
Overall, we found the discussion of scholarship to be rigorous, well-supported, and developed. Even though the content focused on topics within family sciences, these approaches are applicable across all fields using qualitative methodologies. We have noticed an influx in qualitative studies within adult education journals during the last decade and feel this book can be useful to both novice and seasoned researchers in the field. In particular, this book would be useful in an advanced data analysis course. The original sources could be assigned in conjunction with these chapters reflecting on methodological challenges. This book illuminates the struggles that even seasoned published scholars have with ambiguity and decision making that comes with conducting qualitative data analysis. Kemp, Ball, and Perkins note, “Qualitative analysis, when done well, is enormously laborious” (p. 172). We could not agree more. This book demonstrates the physical, emotional, mental, (un)productive, and (un)skilled labor missing in standard methodology sections of published research. We hope this book will be useful to others on their own research journeys.