This paper proposes a new instrument to inspect sequential data visually
The idea is to generate codes systematically out of a hierarchical tree of categories
The algorithm mimics the characteristics of the hierarchical tree
Visual inspection of the sequences is particularly beneficial to qualitative researchers
This algorithm can feed in the replacement cost matrix in Optimal Matching Analysis
Abstract
Sequence analysis has been widely used to investigate the patterns of similarities and differences of sequential data in biology and sociology. However, the debate on the usage of sequence analysis in social sciences has not been settled yet. Among a long list, sequence analysis methods have been criticized for ignoring the qualitative information behind the sequences. This paper presents a new instrument for inspecting sequential data visually in qualitative studies. The method includes building a hierarchical tree of relations among the categories which is then used to recode the categories systematically. The recoding process is meant to give meaning to the differences among categories and, therefore, increases our ability to see the differences. The instrument is a fruit of a qualitative study carried out to explore student’s learning patterns. The focus in this paper will be on the algorithm of recoding the categories and how the emergent codes can be plotted to generate insights for further qualitative investigation.
Keywords:
Sequence Analysis
Qualitative Studies
Learning Patterns
Data Analysis
Categorization
Sequences
Cited as:
Aldahdouh, A. A. (2018). Visual Inspection of Sequential Data: A Research Instrument for Qualitative Data Analysis. The Qualitative Report, 23(1631–1649). Retrieved from https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol23/iss7/10
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