This document summarizes a workshop on using qualitative data and software like NVIVO. It discusses skills for coding projects in NVIVO, including viewing coding stripes and models. It provides examples of constructing arguments from interview data and comparing different discourses. The document emphasizes that qualitative data does not simply mirror reality and encourages moving toward more sophisticated arguments. It concludes by thanking participants and providing a reference on ethics.

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Critical Thinking Using
Qualitative Data and Software
Part Two– Results and
Conclusions
By Wendy Olsen
2014
Methods@Manchester Workshop
Aiming at PhD Students and Researchers
Who Want to Disseminate Arguments

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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) 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
R = Reasoning (D=Data)
C = Conclusions

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4
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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Example 1 (refers to Ethnic
Labour interview)
• P1: The woman speaks genuinely about her beliefs and attitudes.
• P2: The husband, coming as a boy from a Germany background, is not
holding up a typical Pakistan culture
• R1: Data says that she believes she is having an atypical marriage,
because he does not have typical traditional Pakistan-associated attitudes.
• R2: Data also shows she has a typical gender division of household labour.
• R3: Data also shows she does not disapprove of the female doing washing
and ironing.
• C1: Her marriage is typical and traditional for Pakistani-origin Muslim
although her beliefs are more egalitarian
• C2: The one exception is if she is absent, at which time her husband will
‘get one with it’, taking up the female gendered roles at home.
• C3: Cooperativeness is valued by both their families and each of them.
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Example 2 (refers to NVIVO project
on microfinance, called “Arguments…
nvp”)
• P1: The women speak genuinely about their experiences in groups.
• P2: The banker speaks genuinely and knows bank views about groups.
• R1: Data says that the characterisation of women in self-help groups as
‘poor’ is contested: manager says they are nonpoor hence good.
– D1: Data from village women shows they also discriminate by literacy.
– D2: They focus on voice and leadership issues, and women leaders.
• R2: The impact of village groups depends on who are members.
• R3: The impact of groups is contested. Women in the groups feel their
agency is mediated by their leaders.
• R4: Leadership among women inculcates more public assertiveness.
• R5: If public assertiveness then rules will be followed, e.g. legal rules.
• C1: Groups cause more rule-following. [more justice? Accountability?]
• C2: Groups that include leaders are more able to enforce rule-following.
• *C3: Banker thinks that non-poor have better impact. “Impact”=profit.
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The word cloud is purely
descriptive
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The improved approach will
consider differences of
opinion
• Analysis, analysis, analysis
• From the pro-profit discourse, the microfinance
may be a good/bad bet, or one may want to
target training at the profit-makers, or try to
improve the non-profit-oriented women…?
Normatively neoliberal in underlying values.
• From the women’s own pro-agency discourse,
we found that the micro-finance groups were
enabling VOICE of LEADERS and this had little
to do with Profit. Normatively oriented to
human rights and justice, not profit.
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The NVIVO ‘Coding Tree’
Approach Tends to Clump all
Text into a Single Discourse
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Two Discourses Compared
Analyse the women’s first
• Agency of women
• Agency of leaders
• Creation of leadership
skills
• Change of abilities during
membership
• Normative underpinnings
• Labels and tropes
indicate what typically
happens
Analyse several bank
managers’ discourse next
• We saw a strong focus on
profit through several
interviews
• Some mentioned
women’s empowerment
too
• The one from Mysore
Bank was not pro-poor,
focused on superiority of
non-poor
• Was this general?/isable?10

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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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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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13. Helpful hints for Models
• These are used for brainstorming.
• You place CODES here as Project Items.
• They have CONNECTORS. Add more of these.
• You add PROJECT ITEM >> NOTE to make your
own freestyle handwritten notes about the
arguments.
– Lay arguments. – no theory
– Your expert arguments. - invoke theory
– Please try to move toward more advanced,
sophisticated arguments similar to a PhD or Article.12/06/14 13

14. What do qualitative data represent?
• The texts are NOT a mirror of society.
• Comments are often contested.
• Let different voices stand out.
• People use metaphors and analogies based
upon real experience.
• They also use common lay idioms.
• The meaning has to be discerned.
• TROPES are interesting, e.g. ‘they do charity’
translates as ‘they are not poor nor
degraded’.
• Your knowledge grows with
qualitative experiences.
– Texts are empirical evidence.
– Be scientific.
– You can do deconstruction about
the underlying situation and still be
scientific.
• Triangulation improves your mental
map of the scene
• Seek valid conclusions
• Causal analysis is important
• The analysis of meanings is
important, too.
• You are doing induction.
• You are also doing retroduction
when you triangulate.
• Triangulation makes reference to
common cultural knowledge, other
sources, survey data etc. for facts
and background, and for meanings.
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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.