ABSTRACT
Imagine a snapshot of an athlete clearing a hurdle. What can we tell from our snapshot about what is happening? Although we have only a static image, we will have some idea of what has just happened, and what is going to happen. We may not understand the law of gravity, but we do have sufficient grounds for inferring that what goes up must come down. All the same, we would be happier with a succession of images which provide more direct evidence of what is going on. A videotape would do nicely. Then we would be in a much better position to answer the question ‘what happens next?’ Qualitative data often provides us with just this sort of direct evidence about the dynamics of what is happening.
