In my experience, it is a bit of both. You want to go 'in depth' in discussions around the data. OTOH, the panel itself will leave unsatisfied if you havent presented a comprehensive overview of the 'story' itself. This is the nature of narrative and audience. This also helps in allowing the panel to see connections with earlier data, how specific metaphors develop throughout the story and how the interviewee created the gestalt of their life story.
You can also use micro-analysis of specific sections of data, but again, these are most useful when they can be related to the gestalt of the whole. It is a kind of shuttling back and forth from the specific to the more general, each informing the other.
Cheers,
kip
Dr Kip Jones
Reader in Qualitative Research
Centre for Qualitative Research
Leader, Performative Social Science Group
School of Health & Social Care and The Media School
Bournemouth University
Bournemouth, UK
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--- On Fri, 4/12/09, tom wengraf <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: tom wengraf <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Should a BDC Panel go for depth or coverage?
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Friday, 4 December, 2009, 18:33
Dear Anne-Greet
Congratulations on running an enjoyable first panel!
In one sense, without being there I can't make any serious judgement on the
panel. In another, I would argue that you're done the right thing.
It is more important to go deeply and multiply interesting hypotheses about
the few bits of data than to rush along and try to cover (superficially)
twice or ten times as many.
The important thing is for the panel to multiply hypotheses and speculate
about complexities that you, as researcher after the panel, would not have
thought of on your own. (What is pointless is to try to move so quickly
that the panel thinks of nothing that you would not have thought of
yourself).
In a similar way, when doing the research interview, and looking in the
interlude between sub sessions at your notes on sub-session one, the
important thing is not to try to cover all the possible items that the
interviewee talked about in sub-session one. The important thing is to
select a few fruitful ones, and push in a sustained way for PINs and
especially IN-PINs, on the ones you have chosen. Again, it is depth not
coverage which is important.
Do keep in touch and let me know how things develop.
Best wishes
Tom
P.S. Since this is a general issue, I'm copying this to the e-list.
-----Original Message-----
From: A.G.W. van Rootselaar [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 04 December 2009 15:51
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: BDC Panel
dear Tom,
last wednesday I did my first panel meeting on a BDC. it was indeed fun, as
you predicted in your literature. One important question arose during and
after the panel meeting.
in three hours time we were able to create hypotheses for just four chunks
of data. This is less than what is expected (ten to twenty). maybe it was
because my panel was enormously creative and could go on and on, or maybe
there is another reason, any way I didn't know when to stop and go to the
next chunk.
for my next panel meeting on the TSS; Should I put a time limit on each
chunk? should I create a maximum amount of hypothesis? I don't know what to
do.
can you give me some advise? I did not find anything on maximums in the
literature, only on minimums (which the panel obviously succeeded to reach,
quite easily).
hope to hear from you
kind regards,
Anne-Greet van Rootselaar
