What is qualitative data analysis usually focused on?

Qualitative data analysis primarily concentrates on identifying themes and patterns within qualitative data. This approach is rooted in understanding the richness and depth of human experiences, social interactions, and subjective meanings. Researchers engage with data such as interviews, open-ended survey responses, and observational notes, looking for recurring topics or insights that can provide a deeper understanding of the phenomena being studied.

The process often involves coding the data to categorize and distill information, which helps in recognizing the underlying themes that can emerge from diverse perspectives. This qualitative approach allows researchers to generate new theories or insights that are grounded in the data rather than imposing preconceived notions or statistical tests. By focusing on themes and patterns, qualitative data analysis offers an in-depth exploration of the context and nuances of the research subject.

In contrast, analyzing numerical data to find averages pertains to quantitative data analysis, which deals with statistics rather than qualitative insights. Testing hypotheses using statistical methods is also associated with quantitative research, where the emphasis is on measuring and validating theories. Creating visual representations of data, while useful in both qualitative and quantitative research, is not the primary focus of qualitative data analysis, which is more concerned with the interpretation of non-numerical data.