Invoking interactive qualitative analysis as a methodology in statistics education research
Abstract
This study investigated the use of interactive qualitative analysis (IQA), as a research
methodology, to develop an understanding of students’ experiences of learning statistics in a
threshold concepts-enriched tutorial programme. Interactive qualitative analysis methodology
offered a systematic, rigorous and accountable approach to conducting qualitative research.
The participants constructed their own meaning of reality from their experiences of interacting
with the phenomenon in context and, in its refutation of traditional qualitative norms of
enquiry that casts the role of the researcher as the expert, IQA stands out – entrusting
participants with data generation, analysis and interpretation. Participants’ reflections of their
experiences of the phenomenon under study are classified according to variously identified
emergent themes called ‘affinities’. Relationships between these affinities are extricated and
characterised in a visual representation of the phenomenon called a systems influence
diagram. Thus, the researcher’s role was purely facilitative, greatly limiting the potential for
skewed power relations and bias which is often hazardous in qualitative research. The
paramount value of this article was that it offered a practical methodological approach to
using IQA in qualitative statistics education research, in particular, and mathematical sciences
education research, in general. A summarised account of the main findings of the broader
study was also presented.
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- TD: 2020 Volume 16 [37]