Survey research and design in psychology/Assessment/Lab report/Detailed marking criteria/Qualitative analysis

Qualitative analysis for the lab report (G students)

Overview

The marking criteria for graduate students in this unit includes a qualitative analysis of one or both open-ended questions in the lab report. An additional word count of 500 words (+ 10%) is available.

On one hand, this extra requirement may see like an a burden. On the other hand, this is an opportunity to provide a more indepth report, with additional word count available.

There are two possible approaches to analysis of the open-ended data (choose one):

1. Qualitative - analyse key themes and provide a "thick description" (rich summary), including illustrative quotes
2. Quantitative - code the themes into categories and then provide a statistical/graphical summary (preferably using multiple response analysis which is similar to frequencies, but takes into account that respondents can have more than one response)

These approaches are described in more detail in these tutorial notes, which also have an accompanying screencast: Qualitative analysis (Tutorial notes).

There is also a recorded lecture available on this topic which provides additional background: Qualitative research (Lecture)

Note that the sample HD lab report includes a qualitative analysis.

See also

• Qualitative analysis (Tutorial notes)
• Qualitative analysis (Wikiversity)