The Evolution of an Insight
I am always a bit overwhelmed when I start the qualitative analysis phase of a research project. After conducting interviews, I have dozens or hundreds of pages of transcripts to pour through. There’s so much rich data and many possible pathways towards insight.
One thing that has helped me is to embrace the fact that qualitative analysis is an organic process. Rigorous insight needs the space to evolve.
And while each project may be wildly different, the process has tended to follow the same general roadmap:
- Immerse: I start by immersing myself in the transcripts. I don’t quite know what I’m looking for, so I create a few codes that are loosely related to my research objective. I begin reading my transcripts and code any text that is interesting or relevant. When I read things that aren’t related to an existing code, I create new codes on the fly.
- Explore: I take a step back to look at themes that emerged during the first stage. I refine my codes: by renaming some to give them more nuance and universality, and by grouping together similar ones that seem connected.
- Converge: I bring it all together at this point. I merge together multiple codes that mean the same thing. I prioritize themes that seem most representative of the participant base group, and note the outliers. This is when higher-level codes and emergent themes begin to coalesce into narratives. In the end, I have rigorous insights, which are backed up with quotes that I can quickly export into a final report.
We built Delve to make this evolution from qualitative data to insight seamless. Our coding system was designed to allow for maximum freedom and flexibility in the immersion and exploration phase.
That’s why Delve recently created the ability to effortlessly merge codes. With the ability to merge codes, it’s also easy to converge your themes and finalize your insights.
With the ability to seamlessly merge codes, you can reach rigorous, actionable insights much more quickly and efficiently.
Qualitative analysis can feel daunting when you’re at the beginning of the process, but you can relax knowing that wherever your analysis leads, Delve will help you get there.
Want to evolve your insights? Try out Delve!
