The magic square of qualitative research: the necessary fit among objectives, theoretical-conceptual framework, analytical school and organization of empirical materials

Qualitative research specialists usually stress the importance of tuning research objectives and the theoretical framework. However, it is quite uncommon to make such an assumption in relation to the link between theory and type of analysis and between type of analysis and how to work with the empirical materials gathered for the research project. Thus, the aim of this contribution is to vindicate and explore such links. More than advocating for some theoretical approaches or analytical schools, I stress the need of choosing the theory and the analytical school that best suits the kind of objectives fixed.

Different theoretical-conceptual frameworks unavoidably have epistemological foundations that may be at odds to one another. Theirs assumptions on society and the individual self, as a start, may differ greatly. Thus, it is difficult to think that any approach to text analysis will serve any theoretical perspective. For instance, interactionist perspectives need forms of analysis that can grasp subjective symbolic meanings. Constructivist approaches are better served by discursive analyses that can account for the constructed character of the social. The same can be said about qualitative analysis: forms of content analysis share a common informational approach to texts that cannot be useful for constructivist approaches; grounded theory analysis would not be useful either for these approaches.

Finally, the way researchers make sense of the empirical materials, either by classifying, codifying, looking for patterns, etc., is necessarily dependent on the forms of analysis chosen and more distantly on the theoretical framework. The coding for discourse analysis has to be undertaken on the understanding that codes will represent some elements of the discourses that need be identified or the modalities of their uses, much unlike the way to proceed in Grounded Theory (categories and properties; constant comparisons) or content analysis (presence of themes).