Understanding Qualitative Data: A Framework of Text Analysis Methods.

Author List: Lacity, Mary C.; Janson, Marius A.;

Journal of Management Information Systems, 1994, Volume 11, Issue 2, Page 137-155.

Information systems (IS) researchers have argued the need for using qualitative approaches, such as action research, ethnomethodology, phenomenology, and futures research, to supplement widely used quantitative approaches. Despite the interest in qualitative approaches, almost all IS articles published in leading IS journals during the previous decade continue to report the results of quantitative studies. The disparity between the interest in and adoption of qualitative approaches may be attributed to unfamiliarity with qualitative approaches for analyzing text data and the mistaken belief that all qualitative approaches are antipositivist. This paper makes qualitative methods more accessible to both researchers and practitioners by providing a framework that categorizes various text analysis approaches. The framework classifies methods as positivist, linguistic, and interpretivist, based on assumptions about the nature of text data, the researcher's influence on text interpretation, and the validity checks used to justify text interpretations. Thus, all researchers can consider qualitative text analysis methods regardless of their paradigmatic position.

Keywords: information systems research;interpretivist research methods;linguistic research;positivist research

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List of Topics

#289	0.339	qualitative methods quantitative approaches approach selection analysis criteria used mixed methodological aspects recent selecting combining known conclusions included article appropriateness
#37	0.164	intelligence business discovery framework text knowledge new existing visualization based analyzing mining genetic algorithms related techniques large proposed novel artificial
#222	0.162	research researchers framework future information systems important present agenda identify areas provide understanding contributions using literature studies paper potential review
#17	0.128	empirical model relationships causal framework theoretical construct results models terms paper relationship based argue proposed literature issues assumptions provide suggest
#32	0.094	research studies issues researchers scientific methodological article conducting conduct advanced rigor researcher methodology practitioner issue relevance findings validation papers published
#126	0.055	data database administration important dictionary organizations activities record increasingly method collection records considered perturbation requirements special level efforts administrators analyzed