Making Sense of Qualitative Data: Complementary Research Strategies

After a research project has been designed and the data have been gathered, what is the best way to transform the myriad varieties of data into something useful? Authors Amanda Coffey and Paul Atkinson underscore the diversity of approaches at the disposal of the qualitative researcher by using a single data set--doctoral students and faculty members in social anthropology--that they analyze using a number of techniques. User-friendly and accessible, Making Sense of Qualitative Data is not intended as a comprehensive cookbook of methods. It describes and illustrates a number of key, complementary approaches to qualitative data and offers practical advice on the many ways to analyze data, which the reader is encouraged to explore and enjoy. Practical and straightforward, with special attention paid to the possibilities in computer-aided analysis, Making Sense of Qualitative Data is an invaluable resource to students and professionals in qualitative and research methods, sociology, anthropology, communication, management, and education.

Paul Atkinson is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Cardiff University. Recent publications include For Ethnography (SAGE 2014) and Thinking Ethnographically (SAGE 2017). The fourth book in his quartet will be Crafting Ethnography, also for SAGE. The fourth edition of Hammersley and Atkinson Ethnography: Principles in Practice was published by Routledge in 2019. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and of the Learned Society of Wales.