[Martyn Hammersley]1 Pretty standard stuff but better than equiv last year Some interesting questions I hadn’t thought as much about before: Can quan data be turned into qual (infographics may be a case?) At ‘data’ level – distinction pretty clear. At level of methods, qual/quan distinction tougher to draw. ‘What is data?’ – evidence v. info related to theory (quan v qual respectively). – I suspect part of the issue here is related to the fact that people often fail to acknowledge the role of theory and theory selection in their gathering of data, and that this is more common in quantitative studies than none. I’l have to talk to my philosophy of science friends about this :-). We also hit upon an issue in thematic analysis and similar (often psychological) approaches…to quote me: “There is an inherent concern in coding schemes – particularly those created from highly localised settings – that they ‘beg the question’ – that is, that one can fall into the trap of: 1. Using literature to design a study to probe a particular issue – often deliberately attempting to ‘segment’ particular sorts of ‘cognitions’ along the way. 2. Conducting the (localised) study, and extracting codes from this 3. Discovering codes which probe the particular issue in highly theoretically grounded 4. Claiming that these codes reflect the ‘cognitions’ of cognizers acting on general tasks (as opposed to study tasks, designed specifically to illicit responses)” [zotpressInText item=”PEBTEJBQ” pages=”90-91″] I’m left (Again) wondering why on earth anyone is anything other than a pragmatist (in the philosophical sense, rather than the natural language sense). [zotpressInTextBib]