Worth Trying

Doing qualitative research really tests my patience especially when there is so much input received and gathered from various sources. All this while I was so much into quantitative research. My first practical experience with qualitative research was when I got involved in a multi-million ringgit kind of project driven by the MOE on 'Technology Initiatives and PPSMI.' The experience that I gained from this project, in a way, has helped me in designing and managing my doctoral research. Even so, there is so much to learn for conducting a research.

I have to admit here that doing a doctoral research could sometimes drive me crazy. It's no joke! Sometimes I wasn't sure enough of what to analyze; where to start; what to focus; which idea to use; which approach to follow - positivist? anti-positivist?; what style of writing should I follow - modernist? post-modernist? etc; which research paradigms should I follow - normative? interpretive?. Well, these were among the issues that I was struggling at during my first 6 months of my candidacy...not forget to mention of having to produce another proposal on research ethics (a requirement in NZ).

My first year was gone, and my second year is almost gone, which leaves me with a year to go more or less. Despite having excellent reports from my supervisors, I'm still struggling with my data. Collecting less data is no good, having too much data is no good either (hahaha). For my case, is having abundance of data. Looking at my data always make me thinking of several different ways to best analyze it so much so that nothing is being left behind. I've learnt using NVIVO, but it seemed complicated as compared to using SPSS for descriptive statistics. Hence, I ended up analysing my data manually. For some people, this is the hard way of doing it but I personally feel this is the best way to work with my data at the moment...hmm...at the moment.

Just to share with friends in the same boat, there is no one best way/method of analysing our research data. It's us to decide which works well and which does not as we know what is best for us. However, it's worth trying several different ways in analysing our qualitative data.

I, recently, was made aware of another software that could assist in qualitative data analysis called LEXIMANCER. According to a friend of mine, it's quite easy to use. I think it's worth looking at...why not?