Life With and Without Coding: Two Methods for Early-Stage Data Analysis in Qualitative Research Aiming at Causal Explanations

Qualitative research aimed at "mechanismic" explanations poses specific challenges to qualitative data analysis because it must integrate existing theory with patterns identified in the data. We explore the utilization of two methods—coding and qualitative content analysis—for the first steps in the data analysis process, namely "cleaning" and organizing qualitative data. Both methods produce an information base that is structured by categories and can be used in the subsequent search for patterns in the data and integration of these patterns into a systematic, theoretically embedded explanation. Used as a stand-alone method outside the grounded theory approach, coding leads to an indexed text, i.e. both the original text and the index (the system of codes describing the content of text segments) are subjected to further analysis. Qualitative content analysis extracts the relevant information, i.e. separates it from the original text, and processes only this information. We suggest that qualitative content analysis has advantages compared to coding whenever the research question is embedded in prior theory and can be answered without processing knowledge about the form of statements and their position in the text, which usually is the case in the search for "mechanismic" explanations. Coding outperforms qualitative content analysis in research that needs this information in later stages of the analysis, e.g. the exploration of meaning or the study of the construction of narratives

The Discovery of Causal Mechanisms: Extractive Qualitative Content Analysis as a Tool for Process Tracing

Wir möchten mit diesem Artikel zur methodologischen Diskussion über die Eignung qualitativer Methoden für spezifische Zwecke beitragen, indem wir die Rolle der extrahierenden qualitativen Inhaltsanalyse in der Entdeckung kausaler Mechanismen diskutieren. Die empirische Identifizierung kausaler Mechanismen wird in der methodologischen Literatur als Process Tracing bezeichnet. Allerdings wird die Literatur durch die Idee dominiert, Process Tracing würde das Vorhandensein eines hypothetischen Mechanismus testen. Wir betonen dagegen die Entdeckung kausaler Mechanismen auf der Basis einer kausalen Rekonstruktion, wie sie von MAYNTZ (2009 [2002], 2016) vorgeschlagen wurde. Wir identifizieren die extrahierende qualitative Inhaltsanalyse als eine distinkte qualitative Methode und spezifizieren ihr Ergebnis als eine strukturierte Informationsbasis, die für die Rekonstruktion sozialer Situationen und Prozesse genutzt werden kann. Eine solche Informationsbasis ist ein wichtiger Ausgangspunkt für die Kausalanalyse. Wir demonstrieren die Rolle der extrahierenden qualitativen Inhaltsanalyse an einer empirischen Studie von LAUDEL und BIELICK (2018), in der die Mechanismen identifiziert wurden, die zur Entstehung individueller Forschungsprogramme von Nachwuchswissenschaftler_innen führen.With this article, we seek to contribute to the methodological discussion about the fit of qualitative methods for specific purposes by examining the role that extractive qualitative content analysis (EQCA) can play in the discovery of causal mechanisms. The methodological literature on the empirical identification of causal mechanisms (an approach called process tracing) has been dominated by the idea of empirically testing the presence of hypothesized mechanisms. We argue for the discovery of causal mechanisms on the basis of causal reconstruction as suggested by MAYNTZ (2009 [2002], 2016). We establish EQCA as a distinct qualitative method and specify its outcome—namely, a structured information base that can be used for the reconstruction of social situations and processes. Such an information base is an important source for causal analysis. We demonstrate the role of EQCA in process tracing with an empirical study by LAUDEL and BIELICK (2018), who discovered the mechanisms that produce individual research programs of early career researchers

Governing Science

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.This review explores contributions by science policy studies and the sociology of science to our understanding of the impact of governance on research content. Contributions are subsumed under two perspectives, namely an “impact of”—perspective that searches for effects of specific governance arrangements and an “impact on”—perspective that asks what factors contribute to the construction of research content and includes governance among them. Our review shows that little is known so far about the impact of governance on knowledge content. A research agenda does not necessarily need to include additional empirical phenomena but must address the macro-micro-macro link inherent to the question in its full complexity, and systematically exploit comparative approaches in order to establish causality. This requires interdisciplinary collaboration between science policy studies, the sociology of science, and bibliometrics, which all can contribute to the necessary analytical toolbox

ERC grants shaping research and academic careers: lessons for funding intellectual innovations

Atlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy 2011The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how and under what conditions the ERC grants serve their intended purpose. The paper is based on interviews with ‘starting’ and ‘advanced’ grantees from six countries and three discipline groups (natural sciences and engineering, life sciences, and social sciences and humanities). Additional interviews with non-grantees were conducted in order to establish a ‘control group.’EU Seventh Framework Programme and the European Research Council (ERC

A bibliometric reconstruction of research trails for qualitative investigations of scientific innovations

"Abrupt changes in research content are of interest to innovation research because many innovations in general and scientific innovations in particular emerge from such changes. However, investigations of innovations emerging from research processes face the problem that the initial change of direction in research by one or few researchers is an elusive phenomenon. The method presented in this article contributes to solving this problem by supporting the in-depth analysis of individual research biographies and of the emergence of new directions of research in these. The method employs bibliometric tools for a reconstruction of individual cognitive careers, embeds these reconstructions in qualitative studies of research biographies, and provides opportunities to link cognitive careers to the dynamics of scientific fields. As we will demonstrate, the method is generic in that it supports not only the investigation of scientific innovations but also, more generally, the identification of thematic change in individual cognitive careers. Two applications in qualitative research projects illustrate the potential of the method." (author's abstract

Creating competing constructions by reanalysing qualitative data

'Sekundäranalysen sind vor allem deshalb von methodologischem Interesse, weil sie es erlauben, die Konstruktionsleistungen zu vergleichen, die in die Auswertung qualitativer Daten eingehen und in eine theoretische Interpretation des empirischen Materials münden. Re-Analysen spitzen diesen Vergleich noch einmal zu, weil sie sich auf dieselbe Datenbasis beziehen und eine der Primäruntersuchung entstammende Frage behandeln. Die diesem Beitrag zugrunde liegende Re-Analyse nutzte Transkripte von Leitfadeninterviews, die im SFB 186 in Bremen archiviert sind. Ein Ergebnis der Primärstudie wurde auf eine Hypothese zugespitzt, die mit einer qualitativen Inhaltsanalyse geprüft wurde. Der Vergleich von Primärstudie und Re-Analyse deckt einige kritische Entscheidungen auf, die die Datenauswertung in unterschiedliche Richtungen steuern und zu gegensätzlichen Ergebnissen führen können. Solche Entscheidungen bleiben gewöhnlich implizit und werden nur thematisiert, wenn Widersprüche zwischen Ergebnissen erklärt werden müssen. Ein zweites Ergebnis betrifft typische Gefahren von Primärstudien und Sekundäranalysen. Erstere scheinen einem 'Gestaltschließungszwang' zu unterliegen: Im Bestreben, den Daten einen Sinn zu geben, werden Datenlücken durch Plausibilitätsbetrachtungen geschlossen und Gegenevidenz vernachlässigt. Sekundärstudien haben vor allem das Problem, dass sie durch die vorgängige Erhebung thematisch und methodisch beschränkt werden. Ein Ergebnis betrifft die mit der Archivierung und Anonymisierung verbundenen Informationsverluste. Sie haben die Re-Analyse anscheinend wenig beeinträchtigt.' (Autorenreferat)'Secondary analyses are methodologically interesting because they enable comparisons between constructions using the same data. This comparison is even more focused in the case of a reanalysis that uses a primary study's data for constructing a new answer to the original research question. In this article, we describe a reanalysis of semi-structured interviews that were archived and subsequently made available to us. We conducted a qualitative content analysis of the interviews in order to find out how well one of the conclusions of the primary study was grounded in the empirical data. A comparison of the reanalysis to the primary study revealed critical decisions that are usually made implicitly and surface only if contradictions between results must be explained. The comparison highlighted the problems arising from gaps in empirical data. Primary studies, which can actually fail by not producing interesting results, are liable to 'compulsive Gestalt completion'. Gaps might be filled by 'plausible assumptions' and unsuitable data used to guarantee success.' (author's abstract)

Architektur im Zwiespalt zwischen Demokratieanspruch und Staatsrepräsentation - das Beispiel Semper

Wissenschaftliches Kolloquium vom 18. bis 21. Juni 1992 in Weimar an der Hochschule für Architektur und Bauwesen zum Thema: ‚Architektur und Macht

Scientific fields as epistemic regimes: new opportunities for comparative science studies

In this paper we develop and apply a comparative framework for the epistemic regimes of scientific fields, which we hope may contribute to strengthening field-comparative research in the sociology of science. We start from the comparative framework developed by Richard Whitley (1984) but modified it radically in order to develop an approach that includes more characteristics of research practices and social structure, and uses characteristics that can be empirically operationalised for a fine-grained comparative analysis of epistemic regimes. We use data from several empirical studies for a comparative description of the epistemic regimes of experimental atomic and molecular optics (AMO physics), plant biology, early modern history, and automotive engineering. This comparison serves as proof of concept. The usefulness of our framework is demonstrated by applying it to an explanation of the emergence of individual research programmes in the four fields. Further possible applications that are briefly discussed include field-specific effects of evaluation regimes, field-specific career patterns, and field-specific practices of data sharing