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Interpretation of Data in Qualitative Research
1
Interpretation of Data in Qualitative Research
Creator:luis arellano
DEFINITION
information
Interpretation is at the heart of qualitative
research because qualitative research is
concerned with meaning and the process of
meaning-making. Qualitative researchers
assume that people’s actions are always
meaningful in some way and that through the
process of engaging with those meanings,
deeper insights into relevant social and
psychological processes may be gained.
Interpretation
‘Interpretation’ is seen as stimulating, it is
interesting and it can be illuminating; however,
it is not seen as something that provides us
with empirical knowledge; the kind of
knowledge, for example, that allows us to build
houses and develop medical treatments
origins of qualitative research
origins of qualitative research
Qualitative psychology grew out of
an understanding that the psychological
knowledge which had been accumulated over
the years was not simply a reflection of reality,
an objective assessment of how people
function.
Qualitative psychology’s roots
psychology
Qualitative psychology’s roots in the critique of
positivist psychology and its commitment to the
idea that qualitative research is there to ‘give
voice’ to those who had been excluded from
traditional psychological research (such as
women, ethnic minorities, disabled people; that
is, those who are in one way or another
marginalized or socially excluded) mean that
qualitative psychologists are highly sensitive to
the dangers associated with the imposition of
pre-conceived theoretical formulations upon
research participants’ experience.
Essential
understandings
interpretation
In recent years, this
interpretative turn has continued to gather
momentum, giving rise to the publication of
increasingly sophisticated qualitative analyses
which engage with interpretation explicitly and
unapologetically.
It
identifies different approaches to interpretation
and looks at how the most widely used
qualitative methods make use of these.
- It also
- comments on the ethics of interpretation and
- reflects on ways in which interpretative
- research may be evaluated (a more detailed
- discussion of the use of interpretation in
- qualitative psychology and the issues raised in
- this chapter can be found in Willig, 2012).
phenomenon under investigation
This claim
raises ethical questions that will be discussed
later in this chapter. ‘Empathic’ interpretation
does not share ‘suspicious’ interpretation’s
ambition to explain why something occurred or
what structures, processes and/or causal
mechanisms might have generated the
observed phenomenon.
The aim of an ‘empathic’
Materials / equipment
interpretation is to gain a fuller understanding
of what is being expressed rather than to find
out what may be going on ‘behind the scenes’.
In other words, ‘empathic’ interpretations are
concerned with how (rather than why)
something is experienced and presented
challenges
challenges
in qualitative psychology which provide new
interpretative challenges.
These include
pluralism, binocularity and the use of
metasynthesis.
Interpretation became necessary
because these ancient texts did not make
obvious sense to contemporary audiences.
Approaches to interpretation
The term interpretation was originally used to
refer to the activity of making sense of
particularly difficult or obscure documents
which had been revered and held sacred for a
very long time, such as mythical or religious
writings.
The Hermeneutic Circle
While Ricoeur highlighted the differences
between these two approaches to
interpretation
very effectively, he did not suggest that one of
them should be chosen over the other. Instead,
Ricoeur (1996) drew attention to the fact that
the
two approaches produce different kinds of
knowledge, with one type of knowledge offering
understanding (on the basis of an ‘empathic’
stance), and the other developing explanations
(on the basis of a ‘suspicious’ stance).
The Hermeneutic Circle
concept
already known (in the form of the interpreter’s
presuppositions and assumptions which are
informed by tradition and received wisdom) and
the new that is still unknown (in the form of the
phenomenon that presents itself), together
which makes understanding possible (see also
Gadamer, 1991; Schmidt, 2006: Chapter 5)
Step 2
knowledge
The two
types of knowledge complement one another
as neither one of them can generate
satisfactory
insights on their own. In fact, the interplay
between ‘empathy’ and ‘suspicion’ in the
search
for understanding is the driving force behind
the
hermeneutic circle through which all
interpretative activity must move.