However beautiful...

As mentioned in my last post I am now entering the major analysis phase of my research, a phase set to last me a full year.  I have over fifty hours of transcribed audio (interviews and meetings) which I now need to sit down and face.

• December is the narrative extraction phase.  In order to focus on narrative elements in the data, these structures first need to be extracted, broken down into component structures and tagged accordingly.  By extracting narrative structures it is possible to have a clear unit of analysis, as is preferred in qualitative analysis, and limiting an otherwise nebulous and unwieldy dataset.  As mentioned narrative in this instance is being recognised as a discursive element (whether told, recounted or hypothesised) around a causally-linked set of events (i.e. with a temporal structure), whether true, fictitious or partly told.  The data gathered supports a consideration of both types of narrative; the contrast is between stories told in interview (typically event narratives following Labovian structure) and those co-constructed in meetings (shared social stories co-constructed typically following a ‘small story’ structure).
• January to March is the open-coding phase.  This is (fingers-crossed) where some clear hypotheses can be developed and a taxonomy of stories collected will be developed.
• March to May and June to August are the two following analysis phases where hypotheses can be explored more deeply in the data, and some nice story network analysis can be conducted. (Informatics likes it when you can produce visualisations...)

The overall approach directly supports multiple-viewpoint analysis of the topics under investigation and allows for cross-comparison of stories told in interviews and meetings (i.e. under different interactional circumstances).  It also lends itself to a focus on the different types of narrative found in different circumstances, which may have an impact on our understanding of developer coordination in different meeting structures. 

It is a beautiful strategy and a big pile of work.  I have taken the decision to upgrade from my trusty N6 to NVIVO 7 which will be better for visualisations.  I look forward to learning this new software as well.

I look forward to being able to see this work take shape, such that I can see past the methodology to the results.  I have taken heed of my fortune cookie quote from HackDay:

    "However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" (Winston Churchill)