You now have generated data – in some form, whether primary or secondary – and now you need to code and make sense of it; you need to put it to the task of answering your research question(s). In other words: analysis. This was the toughest part of my own PhD: I had a mountain of data – how to choose the right pieces? What to say about them? How to make sense of them in relation to my research questions?

This is where theory and concepts come into their own in a PhD or MA. You will have some form of theoretical or conceptual framework (for clarity on theory and concepts, how they differ and work together, please watch this short video). Where students often go off track, though, is not using these concepts or theory to do the work in analysis. The theoretical or conceptual framework ends up standing alone, and some form of thematic description of the data is made, with a rather thin version of analysis. In this situation, it may be difficult to offer a credible answer to your research question.

Analysis is, in essence, an act of sense-making. It requires you to move beyond a common sense, everyday understanding of the world, and your data – the level of the descriptive – to a theorised, non-common sense understanding – the level of the analytical (and critical). Analysis means connecting the specific (your study and its data) with the general (a phenomenon, theory, concept, way of looking at the world) that can help to explain how the specific fits in with, or challenges, or exemplifies the general. If you do not make this move, all you may end up with is a set of data that describe a tiny piece of the world, but with little or no relevance to anyone else’s research except perhaps the few other people researching the same thing you are.

So, how might you ‘do’ analysis?

Imagine you are doing a study on the role of reflective learning in building students’ capacity to critique and create professional knowledge that encourages ongoing learning and problem-solving. ‘Reflection’, or ‘reflective practice’ would be a key concept, as would ‘professional knowledge’, ‘problem-solving’, and ‘learning’. These have generalised, or conceptual meanings that could apply in a range of ways, depending of the parameters and questions of a specific study. Thus, they can do analytical work, helping you to theorise as you answer your research questions.

Then imagine your data set is assessment tasks completed by students in social work and accounting, as two professional disciplines which require adaptive, ongoing learning and problem-solving. You now need a way of employing your key concepts in analysis. You could look at the intentions of the task questions – how they do, or do not, explicitly or actively enable or encourage problem-solving and reflective thinking and learning, and then look at students’ responses and see the extent to which the desired forms of learning are visible or not. This would yield useful findings to feed back to these disciplines in using assessment more effectively.

To reach theorised findings that go beyond describing what the tasks and the student writing said, and conjecture about what the tasks and written responses mean in relation to your study’s understanding of professional knowledge, learning, problem-solving and reflection, you need to start with questions.

For example: these tasks seem to be using direction words such as ‘name’, ‘list’, ‘describe’, ‘mention’, which require mainly memorising, or learning the notes in a rote manner. What kind of learning would this encourage? What impact would this have on students’ ability to move on to more analytical tasks? Is there a progression from ‘memorisation’ towards ‘problem-solving’ or using knowledge to reflect on and learn from case studies etc? What kind of progression is there? Is it sensible, or not, and how could this affect students learning? And so on.

You could then present the data: e.g., this is the task, and this is when students work on this task in the semester or progression of the course, and this is the task that follows (show us what these look like by copying them out, or including photographs). This part of the analysis is quite descriptive. But then you pose and answer relevant questions guided by your overall research objectives: if these two disciplines – social work and accounting – require professional learning and knowledge that is built through reflection, and the capacity to USE rather than just KNOW the knowledge in the field so that professional can adapt, continue learning, and solve complex problems, what kinds of assessment tasks are needed in higher education? Do the tasks students are doing in the courses I am studying here do these kinds of tasks? If yes, how are they working to build the rights kinds of knowledge, skills and aptitudes? If no, what might be the outcome for these students when they graduate and move into the professions? You then have to use the concepts you have pulled together to create a theorised understanding of professional reflective learning to pose credible answers, that are substantiated with your data (as evidence). This is the act of analysis.

In both qualitative and quantitative studies, the theory or concepts you choose, and the data you generate, are informed by your research aims and objectives. And in both kinds of studies, analysis requires moving beyond description to say something useful about what your data means in relation to the general phenomenon you are connecting with, and that informs your theorisation (student learning, climate change, democratic governance, etc). Thus, you need to work – iteratively and in incremental stages – to bring your theory to your data, to make sense of the data in relation to the theory so that your study can make a contribution that speaks both to those within your research space, and those beyond it who can draw useful conclusions and lessons even if their data come from somewhere else.