analysis of data

Question 1

Meta analysis A01

Answer 1

• A Meta-analysis is a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple scientific studies.
• It involves doing more statistics on data that has already been analysed! It involved secondary data (data you have not collected yourself).
• You collect a sample of research into a set topic and then analyse all of the data with a new set of statistical tests to get a larger overview of statistical significance.
• Meta analysis means an analysis over others (an analysis over an analysis) and is a way of using results from different studies, about the same issues, and studying them as a whole to get an
  overall picture about that area of study.
• If a number of studies separately find the same answer, those studies as analysed together, and the answer becomes stronger (more evidence) as the studies back on another up.

Question 2

grounded theory

Answer 2

• Grounded theory is an inductive method (you don’t start off with the theory, your theory
  comes from the data you see).
• You create theories from a grounded theory approach.
• Analysis of qualitative data (interviews, newspaper articles, diary entries etc…)
• It is NOT hypothesis testing!
• ‘Open’ code your data, noting down all important aspects you come across (like
  highlighting a text) to help you look for themes.
• Selective coding comes next where you think you’ve got a theory coming together, so you
  start looking for examples of it.

Question 3

content analysis

Answer 3

• Content analysis is the process of converting qualitative data into quantitative data.
• This is done by converting the data into categories or themes. You would them count the
  frequencies of the occurrences or categories in the data.
• How to conduct this:
  o Read through the data and identify themes which arise (exactly the same as thematic
  analysis), but then you count up how many times those themes occur.
  o Summative content analysis: Count up the number of times specific important words
  occur within the data, then you look at themes about when and where those themes
  occur (who said them in different instances).

Question 4

thematic analysis

Answer 4

• Thematic analysis is a way of analysing qualitative data.
• Thematic analysis is performed through the process of coding in six phases to create established, meaningful patterns (reading qualitative data to create themes).
• You read through material such as newspaper articles or TV shows/behavior in an observation and you pick out themes of what you see/what happens. You would also use this same process for
  transcripts from interviews.
• The phases are:
  o Familiarization with data (read stuff)
  o Generating initial codes (see what jumps out as interesting)
  o Searching for themes among codes (are any of those things related/similar)
  o Reviewing themes (is there enough evidence to say it’s a pattern?)
  o Defining and naming themes
  o Producing the final report