This course presents the qualities of a well-planned qualitative inquiry study, introduces principles and philosophies that guide planning and design, and addresses practical and logistical issues related to this evolving process.

Not only is a qualitative study plan detailed and easily understood, its components depend on the project’s evolving nature, underscoring the continual need for flexibility, often addressed using multiple strategies of data generation and analysis. A well-planned study also keeps a realistic timeframe—working “backwards” from the intended goal and deadline—to make the project manageable and responsive to ongoing “on the ground” developments. Through all stages of design, researchers critically use evaluative criteria to assess areas that need particular focus or redirection.

Planning and designing the phases of qualitative inquiry projects include planning for access to research sites and participant recruitment, planning for quality and adequate data generation (sources and approaches), designing appropriate, systematic, and rigorous data analysis (approach, timing, and techniques), and planning for writing and dissemination.

The course will attend to specific principles that guide planning and designing, including:

• foundational assumptions and “logics” underpinning qualitative research and design
• the importance of active planning and responding to a study’s emergent nature
• considering implications of several “full” qualitative research designs (e.g., ethnography, phenomenology, grounded theory)
• attending to the need for alignment between methodological approach and research design and practice
• issues pertaining to a more “general” qualitative approach applicable to all qualitative research designs
• anticipating and planning how to address ethical issues
• examining how to address researcher positionality throughout the research process

The course will include multiple practical exercises to engage participants in developing and refining their knowledge and skills with an emphasis on adequate data generation and analysis and appropriate sequencing of activities.

Course content will draw on the scholarship of Norman Denzin, John Creswell, Kathy Charmaz, Yvonna Lincoln, Egon Guba, Janice Morse, Martyn Hammersley, Kathryn Roulston, and Uwe Flick including the following:

• Charmaz, K. (2014) Constructing grounded theory. 2nd ed. London: Sage
• Creswell, J. W., & Poth, C. N. (2016) (4th ed.). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. London: SAGE
• deMarrais, K., Roulston, K., & Copple, J. (2024) Qualitative Research Design and Methods: An Introduction, Maine: Myers Education Press.
• Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y. (Eds). (2018) The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research, 5th ed., London: Sage
• Flick, U. (Ed.) (2022) The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research Design, London: Sage
• Hammersley, M., & Atkinson, P. (2019) Ethnography: Principles in practice, London: Routledge.
• Lincoln, Y., Lynham, S. and Guba, E. (2018) paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging confluences, revisited, in Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y. (Eds). The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research, 5th ed., London: Sage, pp. 108-150
• Maxwell, J. (2022) Interactive approaches to qualitative research design, in Flick, U. (Ed.) (2022) The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research Design, London: Sage, pp. 41.54
• Morse, J. (2022) The fallacy of rigor: Examining checklist criteria as an indicator of quality, in Flick, U. (Ed.) The SAGE handbook of qualitative research design, London: Sage, 373-395
• Roulston, K., & Halpin, S. N. (2022). Designing qualitative research using interview data, in Flick, U. (Ed.) The SAGE handbook of qualitative research design, London: Sage, 667-683.
• Thornberg, R. and Keane, E. (2022) Designing grounded theory studies, in Flick, U. (Ed.) The SAGE handbook of qualitative research design, London: Sage, 452-466
• Vanover, C., Mihas, P. and Saldaña, J. (Eds.), The Analysis and Interpretation of Qualitative Data: After the interview. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Once you’ve gathered interviews, fieldnotes, or artifacts, the big question looms: How do I actually make sense of it all? This two-day workshop introduces Dr. Sarah Tracy’s Phronetic Iterative Qualitative Data Analysis (PIQDA)—an adaptable, umbrella approach designed to create practical wisdom and transformative insight. Participants will learn how to move back and forth between data and theory, code with curiosity, and craft claims that matter. Along the way, we’ll explore a range of analysis techniques, from foundational coding practices to advanced interpretive and artistic approaches.

Through examples from Sarah’s research on leadership, compassion, and organizational life, participants will see how PIQDA works in action and gain tools they can apply immediately to their own projects.

By the end of the workshop, you will:

• Understand the distinctive features of PIQDA, including its abductive and iterative approach to generating practical insight.
• Revisit and refine your guiding research question as an analysis map.
• Organize and prepare qualitative data for analysis, choosing among manual and digital technologies.
• Apply primary-level coding techniques such as open coding and in-vivo coding, and practice moving to second-level conceptual coding.
• Develop and use a qualitative codebook to guide analysis.
• Distinguish between coding, interpretation, and claim-making.
• Explore the ethics and practical options of using large-language AI to support coding and analysis.
• Practice heuristic activities for claim-making and interpretation, such as jeopardy research questions, conceptual cocktail parties, negative case analysis, and abduction.
• Be introduced to advanced and complementary analytic approaches, including vignette analysis, typologies, metaphor and narrative analysis, explanation/causality, discourse tracing, deconstruction, and arts-based strategies.
• Experiment with creative examples, such as drawing analysis and LEGO® Serious Play®.

We’ll accomplish all this in a supportive environment that blends lecture, hands-on practice, and behind-the-scenes case studies. Participants will leave with a repertoire of analytic strategies, a stronger sense of how to make their qualitative research compelling, and the confidence to push their analysis from data to insight to impact.

Resources for this workshop draw from Qualitative Research Methods: Collecting Evidence, Crafting Analysis, Communicating Impact (3rd ed., Wiley, 2025) and Sarah’s research in the areas of innovative qualitative research and organizational communication. Sarah has published more than 100 scholarly essays, presented her qualitative research over 350 times to scholarly, professional, and pedagogical audiences and is a LEGO® Serious Play® Certified Facilitator.

Phenomenology is a way for qualitative researchers to look atwhat we usually look through–and is utilized across a range of disciplines from healthcare/medicine, psychotherapy, education, sociology, and beyond. Because the philosophical ideas that underpin phenomenology can be abstract and sometimes elusive, this course will communicate these topics as concretely as possible. That is, the course will provide techniques, tools, and strategies for carrying out phenomenological research. We will use examples, anecdotes, and exercises to work through and navigate the craft.

To learn about phenomenological research approaches, we will experience a series of data collection tools and strategies such as going on “phenomenology walks,” writing about lived experiences, and interviewing one another.

We will explore Vagle’s “three considerations” methodological process for conducting post-intentional phenomenological research—working to make sense of how our phenomena might take shape in various contexts:

1. Identifying the Phenomenon and the Phenomenological Material (i.e., data) to Collect and Analyze;
2. Discerning, Deciding, and Thinking with Theoretical Concepts; and
3. Post-Reflexing by Trying to “See what Frames your Seeing” of the Phenomenon

Finally, we will explore conventional and less-conventional ways to write up our research.

A wide variety of methodological and philosophical texts and examples of phenomenological studies will be shared and discussed. The course is based on the 3rd Edition (2025) of Vagle’s book by the same name, Crafting Phenomenological Research.

Think of this course as an expedition where we travel through the life of a qualitative data collection project (focusing on interviews, including individual and dyadic interviews, and focus groups), defining and gathering the tools we will necessarily engage along the way. We will use two sets of tools to direct course content. First, we introduce ResearchTalk’s set of *10 engagement strategies which provide you with a checklist and action plan as you collect data. Second, we suggest **Sort and Sift, Think and Shiftqualitative analysis tools to integrate when you create and execute your qualitative data collection projects.

The secret to well done qualitative data collection is asking the right questions to the right people in the right way at the right time. That process begins as curiosity about a topic emerges. At this point, we set out to understand what experts are publishing and/or doing in the field. It is critical that we define and introduce our understanding of that work and that we begin contextualizing and aligning our efforts according to this knowledge.

At this stage, before data collection begins, we can introduce qualitative memoing to document what we know about our topic and where our work will fit with other work in the field. Two memos to facilitate this process are titled “What I know so far” and “The Space I’m driving into.” Introducing these analysis tools early in a project keeps our minds active and places us in thoughtful engagement with how our work aligns with the work of our colleagues throughout the life of our projects.

As we begin to shape our data collection protocols, the logic of topic monitoring helps us as we are preparing the conversations we facilitate with participants, paying thoughtful attention to opening data collection episodes and asking questions throughout. Tools like diagramminghelp us visualize the overall complete story that is built during data collection and entertain different options for how shifting and adjusting topics throughout might flow.

As we design and carry out our data collection, our actions are both deliberate and generative. We intentionally remain mindful of the work of others and what we learn as the project evolves. During each data collection episode we pay careful attention to allow us to follow participants’ unfolding narratives while keeping them interested and involved in their own story telling. Closely following their words allows us to move toward closing each conversation in a way that moves smoothly from what has been said so far to an ending that brings closure to both content and the emotional tenor of the interaction.

In between data collection episodes, and after all data are collected, we continue processing what we have learned and how that material fits with the work of others engaging with our topic.

Using integrative analysis tools like story boarding (specifically episode profiling) helps us remain engaged in a way that increases the likelihood that our final presentations represent a hybrid story of our participants’ lived experiences and our professional expertise.

*Each engagement strategy is identified throughout this description with bolded font (e.g., understanding)

**Each qualitative analysis tool is identified throughout this description with italicized font (e.g., memoing)