07 Qualitative Data Collection and Management

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[q] Level of interview confidentiality generally allowing data from the interview to be cited to an interview provided that the individual speaker cannot be identified from the citation; direct quotes may or may not be permitted by the interviewee

[a] background attribution

[q] Thought experiments used in qualitative research to consider the potential outcomes of (unobserved) variable values or combinations

[a] counterfactual analysis

[q] Intentionally gathered information, usually reflecting values of variables

[a] data

[q] Collection of intentionally gathered information (data) normally consisting of one value for each variable for each observation

[a] dataset

[q] Qualitative analytical technique: systematic review of primary, secondary, and occassionally tertiary sources

[a] document analysis

[q] Interviews conducted with individuals chosen because of positions they occupy, rather than as representatives of some larger class; individuals need not be high profile to qualify

[a] elite interviewing

[q] Qualitative data source type: reports produced on an inconsistent basis, sporadically, or one time only

[a] episodic record

[q] Guides to special or archival collections detailing temporal and substantive scope, material origins, etc.

[a] finding aid

[q] Level of interview confidentiality allowing direct quotes and identification of speaker by name; rarely used in social science

[a] fully attributed

[q] Body responsible for ensuring compliance with human subjects research rules

[a] Institutional Review Board (IRB) or human subjects board

[q] Process by which information is converted into systematized values of variables that are comparable across observations

[a] measurement

[q] Level of interview confidentiality not allowing any direct reference to an interview (or interview subject) as the source; all information gathered at this level must be triangulated

[a] not-for-attribution

[q] Qualitative data source characteristic: no analysis separates the researcher from the source’s creator

[a] primary source

[q] Characteristic of a measurement tool: produces values that are consistent across cases and applications

[a] reliability

[q] Qualitative data source characteristic: one layer of analysis separates the researcher from the source’s creator

[a] secondary source

[q] Sampling procedure in which interviewees are asked to name other relevant individuals to interview, who are then interviewed and asked to name other individuals, etc.

[a] snowball sample

[q] Library resources on particular topics, often including archival and nontextual material; these materials typically do not circulate

[a] special collections

[q] Qualitative data source characteristic: two or more layers of analysis separate the researcher from the source’s creator(s)

[a] tertiary source

[q] Process of combing texts to count items or identify passages for content analysis

[a] text mining

[q] Reinforcing conclusions drawn from (primarily) qualitative data by deploying findings or evidence from other types of data or sources

[a] triangulation

[q] Characteristic of an indicator: the indicator captures the concept of interest and nothing else

[a] validity

[q] Level of measurement: continuous or discrete quantities with consistent units attached such as years or votes; most precise level used in political science

[a] interval-ratio

[q] Level of measurement: rankable categories, where the intervals between categories may or may not be equal or precisely definable; intermediate level of measurement

[a] ordinal

[q] Level of measurement: unrankable but discrete categories, with no implied direction or magnitude; lowest precision of measurement

[a] nominal

[q] A single instance of the phenomenon under investigation

[a] observation

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