ABSTRACT
This chapter is a practical introduction to the methods employed by qualitative researchers for collecting, analysing and reporting their data, as compared with the more theoretical approach of Chapter 10. It is in the nature of qualitative research that this usually cannot be done without embedding the methodology in the epistemological arguments (about the nature of knowledge and truth) that the proponents and users of those methods have espoused. Hence this chapter also revisits and expands upon those positions. l Content analysis is a conventional approach and tends to prepare qualitative data for
quantitative analysis in terms of codes and frequency counts. This approach can be used to test hypotheses. There is, however, a contemporary form of qualitative content analysis where data are left as qualitative.
