Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

452 Chapter 16
Analysis
TABLE 16.1
Qualitative/Quantitative Data Analysis
Qualitative
Data
Quantitative
Qualitative a b
Quantitative c d
as numbers. Direct observation of behavior, village censuses, time allocation
studies, closed-ended questions in surveys—all produce numerical data.
Cell b is the qualitative analysis of quantitative data. This can involve the
search for patterns using visualization methods, like multidimensional scaling
and hierarchical clustering. (We’ll get to these methods in chapter 21.) Cell b
is also about the search for, and the presentation of, meaning in the results of
quantitative data processing. It’s what quantitative analysts do after they get
through doing the work in cell d. Without the work in cell b, cell d studies are
sterile and superficial.
Which leaves cell c, the quantitative analysis of qualitative data. This
involves turning the data from words or images into numbers. Scholars in
communications, for example, tag a set of television ads from Mexico and the
United States to test whether consumers are portrayed as older in one country
than in the other. Political scientists code the rhetoric of a presidential debate
to look for patterns and predictors of policies. Archeologists code a set of artifacts
to produce emergent categories or styles, or to test whether some intrusive
artifacts can be traced to a source.
Most quantitative analysis in the social sciences involves reducing people
(as observed directly or through their texts) to numbers; most qualitative analysis
involves reducing people to words—your words about the meaning of
their words or actions or artifacts. I say ‘‘most’’ because a lot of analysis these
days, qualitative and quantitative, involves visualization of data: not just looking
for patterns in data, but showing the patterns as maps, networks, and
matrices.
It’s pretty obvious, I think, that each kind of data—qualitative and quantitative—and
each kind of data reduction—qualitative and quantitative—is useful
for answering certain kinds of questions. Skilled researchers can do it all.
What’s Analysis?
Analysis is the search for patterns in data and for ideas that help explain
why those patterns are there in the first place. The way I see it, analysis is