I’ve Coded My Data! Now What?: Setting Up An Analytic Matrix for Qualitative Data Analysis

Getting over the hurdle of coding your data is a big accomplishment! You’re likely overwhelmed with ideas and potential themes that you’ve observed while you were coding. How can you manage this information and investigate patterns across your data in a systematic way? In this workshop, I’m going to present a matrix approach for consolidating your coded excerpts, allowing you to engage with the data you’ve coded, recognize themes, and determine their prevalence. We’ll practice setting up an infrastructure for analysis, discussing how to navigate this process in teams or as a solo researcher. We’ll also talk about the pros and cons of this approach, implications for rigor, and common challenges in analysis and strategies for managing them. You’ll leave with a handy matrix template and some ideas for authentically carrying your data through analysis and to findings.

About the Peer Scholar: Rachel Rana is a third-year doctoral student in the ELPHD program with a concentration in Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis (EEPA). She is also a Research Associate at the Education Policy Initiative at Carolina (EPIC) at UNC Chapel Hill. Rachel brings nearly eight years of mixed-methods research and evaluation experience in the fields of Education and Public Health. As an applied and justice-focused researcher, she spends a lot of time thinking about the translation of policy to practice in school settings, and the impact of policy implementation on students’ access to ambitious learning opportunities. As part of her role at EPIC, Rachel leads professional development in qualitative research methodologies and is excited to share her approaches to working with qualitative data with her scholarly community at NCSU.