Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Within-Case and Across-Case Approaches to Qualitative Data Analysis

2003; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 13; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/1049732303013006008

1552-7557

Lioness Ayres, Karen Kavanaugh, Kathleen A. Knafl,

Evaluation and Performance Assessment

The generalizations developed by qualitative researchers are embedded in the contextual richness of individual experience. Qualitative data management strategies that depend solely on coding and sorting of texts into units of like meaning can strip much of this contextual richness away. To prevent this, some authors have recommended treating individual accounts as whole cases or stories, but whole cases are difficult to compare with one another when the goal of the research is to develop generalizations that represent multiple accounts. In this article, the authors describe the ways in which three different qualitative researchers combined across-case coding and sorting with a variety of within-case data management and analysis techniques to produce contextually grounded, generalizable findings.