How to analyse qualitative data, using NVIVO, to examine data that seems to hold Contradictions. Three specific types of contradictions typically occur. I show how Logical arguments (units of logic that have premises, conclusion each) can be put together to make complex arguments. I also show how 'encompassing' can help resolve issues of empirical contradiction. Finally the slides show the Bowell-Kemp and FIsher type of diagram of an 'argument' (a series of linked statements leading to a related conclusion). Wendy Olsen University of Manchester July 2014

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Critical Thinking About
Contradictions Using
Qualitative Data (Part One)
By Wendy Olsen
2014
Methods@Manchester Workshop
Aiming at PhD Students and Researchers
Who Want to Disseminate Arguments

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AIM 1) To introduce ‘critical thinking’ to your academic writing.
Class Exercise 1:
We look at your own samples of data, and at one of mine.
AIM 2) Set up (hand) coding on a simple transcript.
AIM 3) A simple NVIVO lecture.
WE WILL BE IN WILLIAMSON ROOM 3.59 COMPUTER CLUSTER 11-3
AIM 4) (rejoin in Room HBS 1.69) and do Exercise 2.
Integrate our analysis of the sample transcript (or your own data
sample, if you bring one) with what we learned about complex social-
science argumentation.

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Critical Thinking
• Parse the logic of a sample piece of
writing.
• The steps should be related, and
coherent.
• The conclusion should rest on the
argument.
• Complex arguments use data as
evidence.
• P= Premises
• C = Conclusions

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An Argument …
• Is an extended set of sentences about
one thing.
• Has a coherent relationship among the
sentences.
• Is coherent as a whole.
• Leads toward its own conclusion.
• I have stipulated this definition.

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Warranted Arguments
• In a warranted argument,
– Conclusions are not just beliefs,
– Premises are consistent and coherent,
– Reasoning is sound,
– Verbs used are relevant and appropriate,
– Logic is used (various types), and
– The conclusion would be false if any of the
P’s or R’s are false. Use Triangulation!!
– * on the previous slide, ‘better impact’ rested upon
unspecified Premises and Reasoning about ‘impact’

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Exercise 1.
–In Pairs: Share textual samples.
• Write down two first-stage ‘codes’ which
are theme names, so that the material in
this sample could be RETRIEVED.
• Write down two second-stage ‘codes’
which are analytical, ie. Perhaps they
relate to theory, such as gender roles,
agency, structures of family, power, or
other.
• The theme is going to develop into an argument. You
are not merely descriptive in summarising your findings.
Induction. This is called the second-stage coding.
• See my example coding on ethnicity.

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See also:
– Bazeley, books and online materials on
NVIVO.
– Elliot, J (2005) Using Narrative in Social
Research, London, Sage.
– Flick, U/Banks, M (2007) Using Visual Data in
Qualitative Research, London, Sage.
– Gibbs, G (2007) Various books on using
NVIVO.
– Lewins, A and Silver, C (2007) Using Software
in Qualitative Research, London, Sage.
7

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Conclusion of Exercise 1
• Step 1 : simple, descriptive codes.
• Step 2 : analytical codes, axial codes.
• These invoke theory.
• Step 3 : develop an argument and test
it out, work on it. Code more…
– What are the people’s lay arguments? (See Sayer)
– What is your expert argument, over-arching?
8

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Conclusion of Exercise 1
• Step 4: what are the contradictions?
• You might expect 3 types.
– Resistance to authority / norms / doxa.
– Agreeing with and yet also disagreeing
with a norm.
– A text contradicting itself, in the sense of its
intended meanings changing over time.
9

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Lecture 1 continued
• Better and worse ARGUMENTS.
– An argument is a theme, and it has to have a
counter-theme (the ‘antithesis’).
• Good arguments might have:
– Better ethics than worse arguments, OR
– More consistent premises, OR
– Consideration of data that might falsify a claim,
OR
– Coverage of things that are very well known to the
writer.
– See Bowell and Kemp, Critical Thinking, London:
Routledge, 3rd
ed., 2010. pg 96.

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Parsing Arguments
• To parse means to break up into small
chunks.
TO PARSE . MEANS . TO BREAK . UP .
INTO . SMALL . CHUNKS.
Verb definition synonym-verb object
• Break up arguments into P, R, D, E, C’s
– Fisher, A. (1988). The Logic of Real Arguments.
Cambridge, NY and Sydney, Cambridge Univ. Press.

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Warranted Arguments About
Contradictions
– Reasoning is sound, and it links together
elements into a complex chain of
reasoning.
– Example:
• Resistance to authority / norms / doxa.

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More applications…
• Agreeing with and yet also disagreeing
with a norm.
• A text contradicting itself, in the sense
of its intended meanings changing over
time.
– Please work on such things in the NVIVO practical.
13

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Data in Warranted Arguments
• Premises
• Data … which verifies findings . . .
– After the findings are rewritten back into the data
sections! But you did not know in advance what
you would find. Discoveries. Retroduction.
• Reasoning . . . Which uses data! Depends on
it! Needs it! Develops / analyses it!
• Conclusion(s) (Danermark et al 2001)
• Beware of verificationism. Hence use hypotheses.
• Or use claims e.g. ‘it is claimed that X  Y’

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The Duhem-Quine Paradox
• Willard Van Orman Quine (June 25, 1908 –
December 25, 2000)
– Edgar Pierce Chair of Philosophy at Harvard,
1956–78
• Two Dogmas of Empiricism (1951)
• Argues that much of science does tend to
verify itself, and that we cannot describe ALL
of the world, only a TINY part of it.
• As a result, descriptions often contradict each
other.
 fallibilism. Epistemological fallibilism.

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The Implications of Quine for
our Study of Contradictions
• We have to holistically develop a
theoretical framework that
encompasses the material we have.
• We can get more material after we do
retroduction.
• That means asking why these data showed up
a contradiction… ask again? Get
texts/symbols? Look at visual evidence?
• Use your own cultural resources. Cite sources.
• Then build the complex argument. 16

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Help From Bowell & Kemp
• A complex argument can be built up in
stages.
• Each stage has Premises, Reasoning,
Data and Conclusion.
• The Conclusion of one is a premise of
another. (OR, using Fisher, a
supposition)
17

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How Bowell & Kemp and
Fisher Illustrate Arguments
18

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How We Will Summarise Ours
19

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How We Will Summarise Ours
20
Suppose P1 a
taboo on
marrying a UK
born person
Evidence is
that some
marry UK born
people and
some don’t
F
a
l
s
i
f
i
e
s
Respondent says
she marries
someone of
whom family will
approve
Weakness of
a single case
as evidence
After
falsifying
-- Then
what?

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How We Will Analyse Mixed
Data Types
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Activity of Retroduction
What would explain what we have observed, in all its variety?
Gather more evidence, e.g. create a Census table of Country of Birth of
person and of their marriage partner using the couples in the UK Census. (!
EASY! USES CENSUS MICRODATA – UK BEST SOURCE COMPARED
WITH OTHER COUNTRIES) What does this Table mean? What does it
imply about the UK world?
Combine this with close study of what must be true for some to conform,
and others to not conform, with the norm

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How We Will Summarise Ours
22
Suppose P1:
a contested
taboo on
marrying a UK
born person
Evidence is
that some
marry UK born
people and
some don’t
R
e
v
i
s
e
d
Some
respondents say
they marry
someone of
whom family will
approve
Some
respondents say
they make a
personal choice
and/or fall in love.
Evidence on
marital patterns
is mixed by
ethnicity and by
religion and
COB
These
women
have to
navigate
roles as
active
agents

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There are many situations…
23

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Help From Bowell & Kemp
• A complex argument can be built up in
stages. Example:
– We did a deductive test of whether the
pakistani-origin couple have a traditional
division of labour.
– Next we inductively seek evidence whether
the woman is comfortable with her
traditional division of household labour.
• We also note she has a paid parttime job.
• We also note her husband works.
• And she travels for work.
24

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Keep the argument
developing…
• We interpret her contradictory statements
as accepting that there are two sets of
pressures upon them:
• Field of work: be a dual-earner household.
• Field of family: contribute money to HH income.
Be a hard worker.
• Field of Household: woman should be a double-
burden bearer without complaint.
• Field of work: get help with domestic work to
enable ourselves to get to do paid work.
– Retroduce using Bourdieuvian social theory.
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Introduce a novel concept
• We need to resolve a problem that we
switched meanings in our own
terminology ‘traditional division of
household labour’.
– A) new term, ‘conceptual ideal of the
TDHL’ vs. ‘practical reality of the pragmatic
sharing of the HL’
– B) Now re-write the whole argument.
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COMMENTARY
• I SOLVED MY INTERPRETATION
PROBLEM.
• IN FISHER, WE ALSO SEE THIS AS
THE LOGIC OF CHALLENGING A
SUPPOSITION: suppose there is a
norm that all pakistan-origin households
have a strict gender division-of-labour…27

28. Matrix search
– These are complex searches on the database. They usually
result in a tabular output. They may correspond with
‘complex arguments’ that summarise and resolve
contradictions.
• To mix Survey Data or a face-sheet with
Textual Data, use Import and then Analyse in
NVIVO. You will need to create Case Nodes.
• These then allow a Classification sheet
showing the attributes of each person/case.
– You can use a Matrix Search on the sub-nodes of a
demographic node like CLASS with the sub-nodes
of another substantive node like ATTITUDES.
– Results are Some/None coded; and linkages to
30/07/14 28

29. Conclusions
• So far I introduced complex reasoning
• I said that NVIVO can be used to code (at
Stage 2) the themes that help you to resolve
any contradictions.
• Sometimes these relate to power, where
people or other agents have an ambiguous
and changing position vis-a-vis
power/hegemonic-discourses/norms.
– Actually setting up a matrix search is beyond a one-day
course, but is possible in NVIVO to illustrate contradictions.
30/07/14 29

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Very Concise Sources:
• Cook, S. (1999). "Methodological
aspects of the encompassing principle."
Journal of Economic Methodology 6:
61-78.
• AND chapters 2-3 of:
• Sayer, A. (1992 (orig. 1984)). Method in
Social Science: A Realist Approach.
London, Routledge.
• OR two chapters from Smith, M., ed.
1998, Social Science in Question.

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Thank you.
P.S. Something to read by Wendy Olsen on
ethics . . .
Olsen, Wendy, (2009) “Moral Political Economy and
Moral Reasoning About Rural India: Four
Theoretical Schools Compared”, Cambridge
Journal of Economics,
http://cje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/33/5/875.pdf,
33:5, 875-902.