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Subject PSYCHOLOGY

Paper No and Title Paper No 3: Qualitative Methods

Module No and Title Module No 34: Interpretation of Qualitative Data

Module Tag PSY_P3_M34

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Learning Outcomes
2. Introduction
3. Difference between description, analysis and interpretation
4. Nature of interpretation in qualitative research
5. How to interpret qualitative data
5.1 Interpreting the same text differently
5.2 Approaches to interpret qualitative data
5.3 Procedure to interpret qualitative data
6. Concerns in the interpretation of qualitative data
6.1 Philosophy of qualitative research and its influence on interpretation
6.2 Interpretation of qualitative data and the reflexivity of the researcher
6.3 Validity in qualitative research
6.4 Ethical concerns in the interpretation of qualitative data
7. Summary

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1. Learning Outcomes
After studying this module, you shall be able to

 Know what interpretation of qualitative data means.

 Understand the difference between description, analysis and interpretation
 Learn the ways and approaches of interpreting qualitative data
 Analyze the concerns in interpretation of qualitative data from the perspective of research
philosophy
 Identify the ethical constraints in the interpretation of qualitative data.
 Perceive the issues of validity in the interpretation of qualitative data.

2. Introduction
Till now we have looked at the procedures of producing or selecting data in qualitative research. The
question is, once you have collected the data, and have coded it and have generated the categories, what
do you do with it? After developing the categories and themes once the coding is under progress, the
researcher starts a process whereby he/she tries to offer integrative interpretations of whatever he/ she has
learned from the data. Interpretation is often referred to as “telling the story”, as it brings coherence and
meaning to the categories, patterns and themes while developing linkages between them and offers a story
line that makes sense and is engaging to read.

Interpretation as a purposeful activity first emerged in the culture of classical antiquity and was concerned
with making sense of difficult mythical and/or religious documents. Later, with the writings of Friedrich
Schleiermacher and William Dilthey, it was suggested that interpretation happens whenever we try to
understand spoken or written language or indeed any human acts. Thus, interpretation is about finding
meaning in any forms of human expression.

Patton (2002) notes, “Interpretation means attaching significance to what was found, making sense of the
findings, offering explanations, drawing conclusions, extrapolating lessons, making inferences,
considering meanings, and otherwise imposing order. Part of this phase is concerned with evaluating the
data for their usefulness and centrality. The researcher should examine all the data segments to support
the emerging story to illuminate the questions being explored and to decide how they are central to the
story that is unfolding about the social phenomenon.”

3. Difference between Description, Analysis and Interpretation of data.

In most of the texts dealing with research methodology, the words description, analysis and interpretation
are often used interchangeably. It is important to understand the difference between them particularly
with respect to the qualitative data.

Description of data simply involves giving a detailed account of something or someone in words.
Interpretation goes a step further than description. It deals with attaching significance to what the data is
showing you, making sensible inferences about your findings, offering context-specific explanations to
the phenomenon under observation, and drawing conclusions based on this entire exercise.

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It is also important to understand that ‘interpretation’ is not the

same as ‘analysis’. Willig (2012) explains the difference by
suggesting that analysis of data would basically involve “systematically categorizing participant’s
statements into a hierarchy of themes that are then presented as ‘findings’ of the study.” Whereas,
interpretation would enter the picture only when “links are made between the ‘findings’ of the study and
the relevant literature and theories in the in the field.” This distinction has to be kept in mind while
dealing with the qualitative data.

4. Nature of Interpretation in qualitative research

Unless the situations are highly controlled or defined consensually, a qualitative research can rarely be
simply confined to summarizing and record keeping. Moreover, when it is not clear ‘which’ or ‘whose’
interpretation is to be considered as correct, the very nature of the ‘problem’ becomes subjected to doubt.
It is therefore advised that this interplay of subject and object, self and problem, should not be taken for
granted. As Phillips (1996) suggested,” researchers ought to give explicit attention to the models of the
phenomena that lie behind their research programs, not so that these models can be expunged but so that,
like other aspects of research, they can become the objects of criticism and conscious investigation” (p.
1013).

According to Schatzman and Strauss (1973),

Qualitative data are exceedingly complex and not readily convertible into standard measurable
units of objects seen and heard; they vary in level of abstraction, in frequency of occurrence, in
relevance to central questions in the research. Also, they vary in the source or ground from which
they are experienced. Our model researcher starts analyzing very early in the research process.
For him, the option represents an analytic strategy: he needs to analyze as he goes along both to
adjust his observation strategies, shifting some emphasis towards those experiences which bear
upon the development of his understanding, and generally, to exercise control over his emerging
ideas by virtually simultaneous checking or testing of these ideas. . . . Probably the most
fundamental operation in the analysis of qualitative data is that of discovering significant classes
of things, persons and events and the properties which characterize them. In this process, which
continues throughout the research, the analyst gradually comes to reveal his own “is’s” and
“because’s”: he names classes and links one with another, at first with “simple” statements
(propositions) that express the linkages, and continues this process until his propositions fall into
sets, in an ever-increasing density of linkages. (pp. 108–110)

Peshkin (2000) has addressed the process of interpretation from a research he had conducted on the
academic achievements of Native American Youth. This paper illuminates the relationship of the
researcher’s subjectivity to the many decision points that each process of interpretation had embodied in
the study. The problematic discussed in this paper very appropriately describe the way in which the
process of interpretation unfolds in the process of conduction of a qualitative research. He states that the
interpretative journey of the researcher starts with the very naming of his/her research study. The naming
points to the relevant literature or the existing work(s) that the researcher reviews in order to plan his/her
study. Secondly, the course of a researcher’s interpretation builds upon the assumption of facts that he/she
incorporates into a line of reasoning. The credibility of the researcher rests on whether the others see and
accept the relationship between the facts obtained by the researcher and the reasoning used by him/her.
The paper quotes the philosopher of science Abraham Kaplan (1964, p.32) who has written about “the
researcher's need to distinguish the meaning of the act to the actor ... and ... to us as scientists.... [These

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are], respectively, act meaning and action meaning... After

arriving at an act meaning ... [the researcher] must search for
the meaning of the interpreted action, its interconnections with other actions or circumstances" (as cited in
Peshkin, 2000). Thirdly, answering the general questions that emerge in the research process depends
upon the skills of enquiry of the researcher, including what specific questions he/she develops to ask and
how he/she asks them, as well as who he/she can locate to interview and with what depth of rapport. All
researchers are not equally equipped with such skills. Moreover, the interpretation of one researcher
depends on the extent to which he/she accepts or rejects what he/she is told.

Thus, a researcher dealing with qualitative data engages in the process of interpretation from the very
beginning of the research process. Interpretation comprises all the elements of selection, ordering,
associating and meaning making. Therefore, interpretation of qualitative data is an act of logical
reasoning and analytical ability. This is because, “it entails perceiving importance, order, and form in
what one is learning that relates to the argument, story, narrative that is continually undergoing creation”
(Peshkin, 2000).

5. How to interpret qualitative data

5.1 Interpreting the same text differently

Remember the story of Dr Jekyll and Hyde? This text by RL Stevenson has generated a large number of
interpretive activity each approaching it from a different angle and asking different questions about the
text.

According to Willig (2012), “the fact is that very different interpretations of the same text can be
generated as a result of asking different questions of and about the texts suggests that every interpretation
in underpinned by assumption that the interpreter makes about what is important and what is worth
paying attention to as well as what can be known about and through the text.” Thus, our epistemological
position determines the type of interpretation we generate. And hence, same or different researchers
trying to study a problem or a phenomenon through psychoanalytic, phenomenological, discourse
analysis, and psychosocial approaches to qualitative research will come up with different interpretations.

For instance, for the same statement said by the respondent in an interview, interpretation using discourse
analysis would concern itself with the way the he/she talks about their experiences and how he/she
constructs these experiences through language (both verbal and nonverbal). Whereas, an interpretation
using phenomenological analysis would concern itself with how something is experienced and how such
an experience is interpreted by the individual who is having such an experience, what it means to him/her,
etc. And, an interpretation using psychoanalytic approach would attempt to identify underlying psychic
structures and processes that motivate the person’s overt and covert behavior. Other approaches may
similarly result in different interpretations of the same text.

It is to be kept in mind that the selection of the approach depends on the research question and the
theoretical premise of the study.

5.2 An overview of the approaches to interpret qualitative data

The interpretation of data is at the core of qualitative research, although its importance is seen differently
in the various approaches. Sometimes, for example, in objective hermeneutics and conversation analysis,
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research refrains from using specific methods for data

collection beyond making recordings of everyday situations. In
these cases, the use of research methods consists of applying methods for the interpretation of text. In
other approaches, it is a secondary step following more or less refined techniques of data collection. This
is the case, for example, with qualitative content analysis or with some methods of handling narrative
data. In grounded theory research (e.g., Strauss 1987), the interpretation of data is the core of the
empirical procedure, which, however, includes explicit methods of data collection. The interpretation of
texts serves to develop the theory as well as the foundation for collecting additional data and for deciding
which cases to select next. Therefore, the linear process of first collecting the data and later interpreting it
is given up in favor of an interwoven procedure. It has been argued by the philosophers of research that
any interpretation of texts may pursue two opposite goals which are in fact strategies that can be applied
successively or alternatively. One of these goals is to put the text into its context by revealing and
uncovering the statements hidden in the material. This often leads to an augmentation of the given textual
material and sometimes page long interpretations are written even for the short passages given in the
original text. The other goal strives towards reducing the original text instead of augmenting it. This is
usually done by paraphrasing, summarizing or categorizing the given textual data.

Flick (2009) has discussed the approaches of interpreting qualitative data in great detail. The excerpts of
some of these approaches are discussed as follows:

Grounded theory research: Grounded theory research uses the procedure of coding for analyzing data that
have been collected in order to develop a grounded theory. This procedure was introduced by Glaser and
Strauss (1967) and further elaborated by Glaser (1978), Strauss (1987), and Strauss and Corbin (1990)
and Charmaz (2006). While using this approach, the interpretation of data cannot be done independent of
their sampling or collection. Interpretation is thus inherent in the entire process of conduction of the
research. Inductive methodology followed in this kind of research enables the researcher to start from the
data and arrive at a generalizable conclusion potent enough to be framed into a theory about the
phenomenon under study.

Content Analysis: According to Bauer (2000), “content analysis is one of the classical procedures for
analyzing textual material no matter where this material comes from—ranging from media products to
interview data.” One of the essential features of content analysis is the use of categories. These categories
are often derived from theoretical models but they are repeatedly assessed against the data and if
necessary, are modified in the process. Contrary to other approaches, the goal here is to reduce the
material into its simplest categories and sub-categories. Mayring (2000, 2004) has developed a procedure
for a qualitative content analysis.

Narrative Analysis: Narrative analyses start from a specific sequential order. The individual statement
that the researcher wishes to interpret is first considered in terms of whether it is part of a narrative and is
then analyzed. Narratives are stimulated and collected in the narrative interview in order to reconstruct
biographical processes. More generally, fife is conceptualized as narrative in order to analyze the
narrative construction of reality (Bruner 1987, 1991) without necessarily using a procedure of data
collection explicitly aimed at eliciting narratives.

Conversation Analysis: Conversation analysis is not much directed towards interpreting the text content
like interview responses which has been produced explicitly for the research purposes. Rather the formal
analysis of everyday situations is the subject matter of conversation analysis. Three things should be kept
in mind in this regard. First, conversation analysis assumes that interaction proceeds in an orderly way
and nothing in it should be regarded as random. Second, the context of interaction not only influences this
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interaction but also is produced and reproduced in it. And third,

the decision about what is relevant in social interaction and
thus for the interpretation can only be made through the interpretation and not by ex ante settings.

Discourse analysis: Discursive psychology as developed by Edwards and Potter (1992), Harre (1998),
and Potter and Wetherell (1998). Discourse analysis is interested in showing how, in conversations,
"participants' conversational versions of .events (memories, descriptions, formulations) are constructed to
do communicative interactive work" (Edwards and Potter 1992, p. 16). Although conversation analysis is
named as a starting point, the empirical focus is more on the "content of talk, its subject matter and with
its social rather than linguistic organization" (1992, p. 28). This allows the analysis of psychological
phenomena like memory and cognition as social, and above all, discursive phenomena. A special
emphasis is on the construction of versions of the events in reports and presentations. The "interpretative
repertoires", which are used in such constructions, are analyzed.

5.2 Procedure to interpret qualitative data

Now the question arises, ‘How to interpret the qualitative data?’ The straightforward answer to this
question is, there is no set rule or procedure.

The task according to most of the researchers basically starts with bringing all the data together. The
themes and the connections should be used to explain the findings. A good place to start is to develop a
list of the key points or important findings one discovers as a result of sorting and categorizing the data.
Further, the research questions of the study should be revisited and recalled. This can be followed by
trying to situate the findings in the theoretical framework selected for the study. Interpretation therefore
basically involves attempting to put one’s data into perspective.

Many researchers have advocated the use of ‘levels of interpretation’ in a qualitative study. This ranges
from an ‘empathic-descriptive level’ where meaning is found out from the point of view of the participant
to a ‘critical-hermeneutic level’ where an alternative narrative is built by the researcher by drawing from
pre-existing theoretical perspectives. Such an exercise results in a deeper understanding of the
phenomenon.

Therefore, it has to be kept in mind that the interpretation of qualitative data cannot happen in a step by
step linear fashion. Rather, it involves a repeated process of critically reading, interpreting and reaching
shared understanding of the collected data. This is diagrammatically illustrated in the Figure 1. Dealing
with the qualitative data through this method of going back and forth provides the researcher with a better
understanding of the phenomenon under study.

You must have noticed till now that the act of interpretation remains like a mysterious mission in the
analysis of qualitative data. In the simplest terms, the aim of this mission is all about bringing sense to the
raw data which otherwise has little or no inherent meaning in itself. But the mystery of the mission lays in
the method and the approach adopted to do so. Thus, “…qualitative analysis transforms data into
findings. No formula exists for that transformation. Guidance, yes. But no recipe…The final destination
remains unique for each inquirer, known only when—and if—arrived at” (Patton, 2002, p. 432).

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Figure 1: Diagram showing the cycle of interpretation of qualitative data.

6. Concerns in the interpretation of qualitative data

6.1 Philosophy of qualitative research and its influence on the interpretation of qualitative
data

Qualitative research is concerned with meaning and the objective is to describe, to understand and
sometimes, also to explain. Qualitative Psychology emerged from a critique of positivistic research and
grew out of an understanding that “the psychological knowledge, which had been accumulated over the
years was not simply a reflection of reality, or an objective assessment of how people tick, but rather an
edifice of theoretical and empirical work that was grounded in a particular tradition of pre-existing
knowledge and expectations and which reflected, rather than challenged, basic assumptions about people
that circulated in society at a particular time.” Such a premise rooted qualitative psychology in the idea of
giving voice to those who had been excluded from the traditional psychological research ( e.g. woman,
blacks, etc.). Since the very philosophy of qualitative research challenges the existing notions, any
interpretation of qualitative data should also be highly sensitive to the dangers associated with the
imposition of meaning and pre-conceived theoretical formulations upon research participant’s experience.

In the studies using qualitative methodology, data analysis and data collection happen simultaneously in
order to arrive at an interpretation which is coherent. The researcher initially starts with some well
established concepts that guide his/her study. But in the course of the research he/she modifies even these
concepts as the data is collected and analyzed. Thus the overall strategy of the researcher is closer to the
interpretive/subjectivist end of the continuum than to the technical/objectivist end.

6.2 Interpretation of qualitative data and the reflexivity of the researcher

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You must be aware that in a quantitative research, any

communication of the researcher with the field is considered as
an intervening or an extraneous variable. But in qualitative research such engagement is viewed as a part
of knowledge itself. Thus, the subjectivity of the researcher and also of those being studied becomes an
inherent part of the research process. Researchers' reflections on their actions and observations in the
field, their impressions, irritations, feelings, and so on, become data in their own right. And these form
part of the interpretation, and are documented in the research diaries or context protocols. Therefore it is
not only important for the researcher to be sensitive to his/her relationship with the data, it is also
advisable that he/she may declare the nature of such relationship before the interpretation exercise so as to
give a contextual background to the readers.

6.3 Issue of validity in the interpretation of qualitative data

One of the most important skills that a qualitative researcher should possess is ‘critical thinking’. Critical
thinking makes the researcher challenge and take a relook at even the things which appear to be obvious
facts. Now how do you use this ability while interpreting the qualitative data? How do you affirm that the
interpretation made by you would be valid? The answer to this question can be adopting an approach
whereby you critically challenge the patterns in the data that seem very apparent. The key lies in realizing
that no interpretation is ‘the’ interpretation and alternative explanations would always exist. Therefore, as
a researcher, you should always try to search for other possible explanations for the same data.

A qualitative study should be designed in such a manner so that it fulfills two criterions. One, it should be
dependable or authentic. This means that if two researchers assess the same process using the same set of
evidences, they should arrive at same or similar conclusions. Second, it should be credible. This means
that the researcher should provide so much evidence of his/her conclusions and inferences that any
independent audit of the entire research can be done if needed.

Many strategies have been developed over the period of years for ways to cross check this issue in the
research. Some of these strategies are triangulation, member checking, peer-debriefing audit traits, and
inter-coder reliability. You will study these strategies in detail in the other modules. What you should
remember at this point is that these strategies are employed by the researchers to establish dependability
and credibility of a qualitative research.

6.4 Ethical constraints in the interpretation of qualitative data

It is also essential to be sensitive to the ethics of interpretation in qualitative research. First of all, the
research should be self-reflective and ensure that he/she has the awareness and the necessary training to
fully understand the relationship between data and interpretation. Responsible interpretation also required
a good understanding of the social and political context of one’s research and an awareness of the
possible limitations of one’s interpretations. Therefore, the researcher should keep the research question
in mind and should be modest about what the research can reveal; should ensure that the participant’s
voice is not lost and should be open to alternative interpretations.

7. Conclusion
Interpretation of qualitative data therefore is a complex process. It involves a lot of processes and
strategies. It operates differently at different steps of the research. And it also has attached with itself

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many issues of subjectivity and validity. In addition, the ethical

constraints keep the researchers dealing with the qualitative
data always on guard.

Patton(1990) is right to state that “working with qualitative data is a rich and enlightening experience.
The more you practice, the easier and more rewarding it will become… As both a science and an art, it
involves critical, analytical thinking and creative, innovative perspectives”.

8. Summary
 Interpretation refers to finding meaning in the collected data in the light of the research questions
and the theoretical framework of the study
 Based on different approaches of doing qualitative research, the same qualitative data can be
interpreted differently
 The procedure to interpret qualitative data involves engaging in a cyclic series of critically
reading, interpreting and reaching shared meanings about the data.
 It is important to be sensitive to the voices of the under-privileged while dealing with the
qualitative data and interpreting it on the basis of an established theoretical model.
 Ethical standards and principles of reflexivity of the researcher must be taken care of while
interpreting the qualitative data.

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