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 through quotes that exemplify respondents’ views or experiences of 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 of the advantages of presenting qualitative findings visually and review the criteria for choosing 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 that 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 in the form of respondents quotes do not constitute findings
- 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 diagrams.
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 on Zoom as well as on-site on request.
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 include 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 software course Introduction to NVivo, Qualitative Data Analysis with NVivo, NVivo Master Course, or Introduction to MAXQDA.
Key readings
Bernard, H. R., & Ryan, G. W. (2010). Analyzing Qualitative Data: Systemic Approaches. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Wheeldon, J. & Ahlberg, M. (2011). Visualizing Social Science Research: Maps, Methods, & Meaning. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Courses in qualitative research designs
This seminar was taught at
As a qualitative research consultant, I am on a mission to open the black box of qualitative analysis and challenge the prejudices surrounding subjectivity, bias, and anecdotalism of qualitative research. As you will learn if you work with me, qualitative analysis is systematic, transparent, and traceable, and can yield unique knowledge and insights that quantitative research can't. I train research teams and faculty staff, provide one-on-one coaching to researchers, and teach doctoral-level courses in method schools. I consult for humanitarian aid agencies worldwide in decolonising research and participatory methodologies.
