ABSTRACT

In this chapter and the one which follows we are going to deal with the stage of the research process which is very often attended by the greatest anxiety on the part of the beginning and the more experienced researcher. Unfortunately, it is also one of the two stages which are least likely to be made explicit either in research reports or in the research methods literature.1 This is the stage at which the information which has been gathered is transformed into data via the process of analysis. The distinction that we are making, here, between information and data is crucial.