ABSTRACT
Traditionally, social science research has been subdivided into ‘stages’. However, these ‘stages’ occur simultaneously and are complementary in field research. Indeed, Becker et al. writing in their study Boys in White indicate that:
In this research, analysis was not a separate stage of the process which began after we had finished gathering our data. Rather…data-gathering and analysis went on simultaneously (Becker, et al. 1961, p. 31)
Here, the research process involved constant analysis as field notes were read and reread to discover relevant problems of study, hypotheses were developed in relation to the problems posed and the researchers looked for valid indications of variables contained in the hypotheses. (cf. a similar process in journalism, Bernstein and Woodward, 1974). Analysis continued throughout the study and provided an outline of many of the conclusions contained in the final research report. However, there are relatively few accounts from field researchers of the actual process of data analysis or from methodologists on how data analysis can be done in field research. (An attempt has been made to address some of these difficult issues in a series of papers on the analysis of qualitative data; (Blaxter, 1979).
