Invoking interactive qualitative analysis as a methodology in statistics education research

Abstract

This study investigated the use of interactive qualitative analysis (IQA), as a research methodology, to develop an understanding of students’ experiences of learning statistics in a threshold concepts-enriched tutorial programme. Interactive qualitative analysis methodology offered a systematic, rigorous and accountable approach to conducting qualitative research. The participants constructed their own meaning of reality from their experiences of interacting with the phenomenon in context and, in its refutation of traditional qualitative norms of enquiry that casts the role of the researcher as the expert, IQA stands out – entrusting participants with data generation, analysis and interpretation. Participants’ reflections of their experiences of the phenomenon under study are classified according to variously identified emergent themes called ‘affinities’. Relationships between these affinities are extricated and characterised in a visual representation of the phenomenon called a systems influence diagram. Thus, the researcher’s role was purely facilitative, greatly limiting the potential for skewed power relations and bias which is often hazardous in qualitative research. The paramount value of this article was that it offered a practical methodological approach to using IQA in qualitative statistics education research, in particular, and mathematical sciences education research, in general. A summarised account of the main findings of the broader study was also presented.