Critical Thinking Slides 2014 Olsen: Logic Argument NVIVO Qualitative Interpretation This talk explains how Fisher described a complex, logical and well organised argument. I also set out ways that we can use interviews or other texts as the evidence part of such an argument. It discusses warranted (logical) arguments, competing arguments and parsing arguments. Examples are developed. There is a part-two with more examples in more detail.

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Critical Thinking Using
Qualitative Data and Software
(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 parse the arguments out (break them up into steps).
AIM 2) Set up (hand) coding on a simple transcript. Simple NVIVO lecture.
Class exercise 2: Look at the transcript that is sent as an email
attachment. Code 1 page with retrieval codes.
Then code with a second layer of analytical codes.
AIM 3) NVIVO SKILLS IN WILLIAMSON ROOM 3.59 COMPUTER CLUSTER
Powerpoint presentation on NVIVO methods.
Practical Exercise 1: Code your project in NVIVO – just 3 codes please.
2: view coding stripes.
3: Look at models and coding in three sample NVIVO projects.
4: add a model to your own project.
Concluding Practical Activities:
5. Overall and document-wise word count
6. Demonstration of matrix query
AIM 4) (rejoin in Williamson Room 2.05)
Integrate our analysis of the sample transcript (or your own data sample, if
you bring one) with what we learned about 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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Exercise 1.
–In Pairs: Share textual samples.
• Write down two ‘codes’ which are theme
names, so that the material in this sample
could be RETRIEVED.
• Write down two ‘codes’ which are
analytical, ie. Perhaps they relate to
theory, such as agency, neoliberal
discourse, power, or other.
• The theme is going to develop into an
argument. You are not merely descriptive
in summarising your findings. Induction.

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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?
6

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Exercise 2.
• Please read Appendix 1 sample of
writing. Work out the main lines of the
argument. Work together.
– what are the ‘premises’, taken-for-granted
assumptions?
– what is the assertion or theme of the short
piece?
– what reasoning is used to link evidence to
this theme? Write brief notes.

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Gist of the Argument (Schools
Online Piece, Appendix 1)
• P1. Schools teach kids to develop arguments.
• P2. Teachers teach kids.
• P3. Teachers choose and use resources.
• P4. Arguments are of different quality levels.
• D: - no data given. E: evidence that one can
gather tables and numbers about marriage is
offered, but not linked into the argument well.
• R1: If data, then arguments are better.
• C1: If data, then teachers can teach better.

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Crucial Linking Reasoning:
• P5. Students choose data to use.
• Unestablished P6. Arguments are of higher quality level if they
use data to support their inner claims.
• R2. Teachers teach kids to develop arguments better IFF they
use data both to teach, and in the arguments.
• R3. Teachers who choose and use data resources of numeric
and survey types online offer better data choices to students.
– R4: Because teachers and students can gather tables and
numbers about marriage, students can link data well into their
arguments. OR
– R5: IFF teachers and students can link data well into arguments,
they can gather sensible tables and numbers about marriage.
C1: If data, then teachers can teach better. (NOT ESTABLISHED)
• C2: IFF R5 then teachers with data can teach better than
teachers who do not use data.

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Exercise 2, Summary
• Some premises were not well argued
for.
• Some reasoning was missing from the
argument.
• The original conclusion rested heavily
on a belief in an unstated Premise.

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Lecture 1. (Morning)
• 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
• 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.

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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)
• Assume M1 M2 to test whether X causes Y.
– (M is a measurement method which has premises.)
• By assuming M1 and M2 you bias the case
toward accepting that X causes something,
and that Y is caused, and thus that X causes
Y or something like that. This is verification.

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Smart’s Paper
• Premise: gay couples who are doing civil registration
agree upon what kind of ceremony and
practices/roles they want.
• Premise: social traditions of weddings influence the
way the UK gay people do civil registrations. (Also
C1)
• D, R’s are about HOW they do it.
• (An even better argument would be about WHY they
do it that way. See “practices” literature.)
• Conclusions: 4 types of gay marriage in UK. The
description offered here assumes no tension.
Anodyne.

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Planning our presentations for
3-4 pm
• SOME PAIRS OF STUDENTS CAN
MAKE A SHORT PRESENTATION --
one slide with your research question.
One slide with your Model or a code list.
One slide with your argument 5 minutes
in all. VOLUNTEERS: (Wendy)
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18. Basic Functions of NVIVO for
Qualitative Analysis
By Wendy Olsen, University of Manchester
Aiming at PhD Students and Researchers
Who Want to Disseminate Arguments
09/06/2014 18

19. Where to find self-training elements
• Click the blue ? circle icon to get help.
• It wants to go onto internet to get help area.
• This has a SEARCH option.
• GLOSSARY is helpful too.
• TUTORIALS is a set of links to online video
tutorials…
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20. Lecture – These are key readings for NVIVO
users:
• Gibbs, G.R. (2008) Analysing Qualitative Data,
London: Sage. Has chapters on all topics at a high
level of abstraction, yet also covers details such as
transcription and digitising the textual data.
• It involves “CAQDAS” and covers NVivo, MAXqda 2 and Atlas.ti
5.2.
• Lewins, A. and Silver, C. (2007) Using Software in
Qualitative Research: A Step-by-Step Guide, London:
Sage. Cover several programs including principally
NVivo, MAXqda 2 and Atlas.ti 5.2.
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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.