The Bricoleur with a Computer: Piecing Together Qualitative and Quantitative Data

Abstract

The researcher as bricoleur will gather whatever data is at hand, experimenting and exploring to find answers to the questions he or she has set. With computer in hand and new tools available, the researcher can readily combine data types, moving beyond complementarity and simple triangulation. Data may be transferred in either or both directions between NUD•IST (a program to assist the analysis of qualitative data) and a spreadsheet or statistical package. Thus, analysis and interpretation are enriched, and new ways of thinking about data are laid open. Such techniques inevitably challenge traditional assumptions about particular methods. But perhaps in the final analysis, all methods, other than those employed in reductionist, hypothesis testing experiments, are essentially interpretive.