Cook Your Veg!!

 


"Data will talk to you if you're willing to listen."

- Jim Bergeson






As I've come to realise, analysing data is a very involved enterprise that requires transformation of raw material in to something of value and meaning.

Simply presenting information you found isn't enough. It has to do something.

In a recent call, Helen related this to having a bunch of vegetables as your ingredients, but throwing them together in a bowl doesn't make it a meal - you have to cook them, blend them, heat them together, allow them to interact and affect each other, add your own spices, stir and blend them... you have to transform them. And then you have a meal.

In short, cook your veg.

Admittedly this isn't the easiest of processes and knowing just how to cook them can be hard in itself, though this is where planning in Module 2 comes in very handy so you have established what approach or philosophical view you are taking and what steps are involved in the analysis process.

The second thing to remember is that this qualitative research is to improve our own professional practice and so analysis relates back to what we know, what we don't know, what we have experienced, and how we can improve. 

I have found that being able to ground myself in the analysis of the data - trying to bring together primary data, literature, and my own experiences - has helped me to understand what and why things may be significant. If they are meaningful to me then they are, by default, meaningful.

I think being able to fully engage in and comprehend this requires a shedding of a pressure to make some huge discovery or big practice transformation. The reality is it will probably a very small, subtle, gentle shift.

To get to our inquiry topic we had to follow our curiosity and it is very much the same with analysis - following the curiosity of what all the data is saying to you and how you may learn from it.

Ultimately, I think if we are discovering new things or contemplating different perspectives that can help us to become better practitioners then we are on the right path.

Just remember that veg is better when cooked!


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