Presenting Qualitative Findings
Key points
- This seminar teaches the best practices and pitfalls to avoid when presenting qualitative findings with visualisations
- You will learn the range of visualisations that best present exploratory, explanatory and predictive qualitative findings, as well as to craft yours to tell the story of your results evocatively and convincingly
- The seminar can be taken as a standalone unit or combined with another seminar, or any of the method courses or an NVivo course.
Description
The seminar Presenting Qualitative Findings provides participants with ideas – and key design tips – to present qualitative findings using visualisations to maximise the impact of your research. In qualitative inquiry, results are typically presented with quotes that exemplify the respondents’ views or experiences on a given situation or topic. While quotes may well provide unique and intimate insights into a person’s lived experiences, they fail to paint a broader picture of a study’s results. Visualisations in the form of models, typologies or diagrammes do this job best — provided they are elaborated properly. This seminar teaches you how to craft and critique visualisations of qualitative findings so you will choose the right one for your study. We open with a discussion on the advantages of presenting qualitative findings visually and review the criteria to choose a visualisation over another based on the nature of one’s data. From a design perspective, we learn the six properties that make a visualisation a winner versus those who turn readers off. We see that models are best to illustrate conceptual integration, matrices best reflect cross-tabulated information, tables are the best way to present typologies and diagrammes are the best choice for depicting structure. The second half of the seminar consists of a workshop in which participants put these ideas into practice and draft visualisations of their findings.
Objectives
By the end of the seminar, you will be able to:
- Argue why raw data (quotes) do not constitute findings, but a support to these
- Describe the advantages of data visualisations
- Apply the criteria for selecting a visualisation for your study
- Apply the six properties of a good visualisation to your results
- Choose the right visualisation(s) for your findings
- Describe how different categories of findings suit different visualisation displays
- Learn when to use taxonomies, typologies, matrices, tables, models and diagrammes.
Prerequisites
This is an introductory course on qualitative data analysis. Although no previous knowledge of qualitative data analysis is required, participants should have some familiarity with qualitative research.
Schedule
Half-day from 9:00 to 12:00 or full-day from 9:00 to 16:00.
Location
This course is taught online in Zoom as well as onsite on a request basis.
Teaching methods
Lectures with guided exercises in which participants work on their own data or sample data.
Fee
Please email me for information on fees.
Combining seminars
This seminar is the first of a series of four seminars that also includes Foundations to Qualitative Data Analysis, Coding Qualitative Data and Transforming Data into Findings. The seminar can be taken alone or in conjunction with the other related seminars. It can also be taught before, after or simultaneously with the Introduction to NVivo or Qualitative Data Analysis with NVivo courses.
Key readings
Bernard, H. R., & Ryan, G. W. (2010). Analyzing Qualitative Data: Systemic Approaches. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Wheeldon, J. & Ahlberg, M. Visualizing Social Science Research: Maps, Methods, & Meaning. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
This seminar was taught at
As a freelance methodologist, I train social scientists and humanitarian practitioners in qualitative analysis, decolonising research and participatory methodologies. I coach research teams, teach doctoral-level courses in method schools and I consult for humanitarian aid agencies worldwide.
