The interview is a one-on-one conversation between the researcher and the respondent. The data collected using this method is called interview analysis. The analysis that the researcher runs to unearth the hidden meanings and patterns in the collected data is called interview analysis. Doing this analysis is important because if you do not do this, you will not get reliable results for your dissertation, and you may fail it.
How can you do the interview analysis for your dissertation in the right way? Well, this question has pretty straightforward. The answer is that you must know the ways to do this, which you do not know. Therefore, in today’s article, we will talk about the ways or methods employing which you can analyse the interview data well. So, let’s get started with the topic.
5 Ways To Do Interview Analysis For A Dissertation
Interview data is a type of qualitative data, and it is data that consists of expressions, words, and statements. Unlike quantitative data, which consists of numbers, it is very difficult to analyse this data. It takes a lot of time and effort to do the interview analysis for a dissertation. However, with the knowledge of the ways to do this analysis, it becomes easy. Hence, the 5 best ways to analyse interview data are as follows:
Content Analysis
The first and the most popular approach to doing the analysis of interview data is known as content analysis. All other techniques of analysis may fit into this. However, to do this analysis, you take all the data and read it line-by-line. By reading, you group the data into different themes, patterns, and words. This analysis method is very useful as it quantifies the relationship between the grouped content or results of the analysis. As a researcher, you can either perform this analysis manually or using an online tool like Lexalytics.
Thematic Analysis
The second best interview analysis method is known as the thematic analysis method. It is more or less related to content analysis. The difference is that this method is more focused on finding themes present. The two points highlighting the difference further are as follows:
- Content analysis can be applied to both quantitative and qualitative data.
- The use of the thematic analysis method is only limited to qualitative data.
To do this analysis, the researcher reads the interview transcript again and again and looks at recurring ideas and discussions in the data. The outcome of this analysis is often in the form of code frames and themes. A very useful tool, Dovetail, is also used to do this analysis.
Narrative Analysis
The narrative analysis focuses on the stories people tell during the interview. In this analysis type, the researcher focuses on the choice of words of the respondent and guesses his behavior or attitude towards things. This method is particularly useful for getting a deeper understanding of the behavior of the respondents about the dissertation topic. The narrative analysis aslo enables you to summarise the outcomes of a study. Hence, it is an important interview analysis method for a dissertation. However, if you feel like you cannot conduct this analysis, you can buy dissertation online as a sample to know how things work in this analysis.
Discourse Analysis
Discourse analysis is the 4th way to analyse the interview data. This method is particularly useful when the discussion is political, cultural, or about power dynamics. The focus of this method is to analyse the way how people speak about these things in different contexts. In this analysis, the researcher does not only read the text and find the themes. In fact, he reads the text and then compares the text with the context in which it was delivered. Hence, this is how this analysis of the interview data is done.
Ground Theory Analysis
Lastly, grounded theory analysis is the last method to do interview analysis for your dissertation. This method suggests taking a single case as a reference and formulating a theory about that point. In fact, this formulated theory is then “grounded,” and all other data is analysed based on this theory. This method is effective because the base of the method is the actual data, not speculative data. So, once the theory is formulated, additional cases are added and tested to see whether they are relevant or not. You can perform this method using tools called MAXQDA and Delve.
Conclusion
Conclusively, the above discussed are the top 5 ways to do interview analysis. All those methods are aimed at processing data and answering research questions. However, all the ways are also different in their approach to the problem. So, choose the way which suits your research data and conduct the analysis in the best way possible.
