Question

Explain how you would process data for analysis of a qualitative research paper.

Answer 1

First step is always the collection of data. Sometimes we have to collect the data ourselves by a survey or an experiment or sometimes we take it from reliable source.

Second step is to store the data in useable format. Mostly csv, excel or any other well known data base is used to store the data so that it can be referenced from there. Data can be small as a table and large such as collection of videos.

Thirdly, the data is cleaned. There might be some missing values or some spurious values in the dataset that needs to be identified and removed. Many times an outlier analysis is done to identify any possible outliers which might affect the outcome.

Lastly, based on our objectives, we check for the assumptions on the data. Like the distribution assumptions the independence and sometimes the homoscatasticity.

Now it depend\s on what paper is about. According to it, analysis can be done which can range from testing a simple hypothesis to a very complicated neural network. But the aim of the analysis should be clear. Any interpretation of data and analysis should be checked and crosschecked since it is very important. The conclusion drawn from the data should be based on evidence keeping in the mind the shortcoming and assumptions.

These are the general steps but it may vary on the objective of paper and the field of study.