The most widely used qualitative method — flexible, accessible, and close to
participants' own words. It works for inductive (data-driven), deductive
(theory-driven), or mixed designs, and a healthy analysis loops back through
its phases as the codebook evolves.
Best for
Applied research that must be understood quickly by stakeholders outside academia, and any study that foregrounds participants' language. Typically ends in 3–6 themes with supporting excerpts.
In Resonance
A six-phase progress ribbon, per-phase reflexive-memo templates, and a codebook built for iteration — then export coded transcripts and theme summaries for the write-up.
Phases
- Familiarisation with data
- Generating initial codes
- Searching for themes
- Reviewing themes
- Defining and naming themes
- Producing the report
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Generate a substantive theory directly from the data rather than testing an
existing framework. The canonical open → axial → selective coding procedure is
iterative, driven by constant comparison and theoretical sampling until the
emerging categories saturate.
Best for
Under-theorised topics where you want a conceptually dense theory grounded in the data — for example, explaining how a novel social process works in context.
In Resonance
Boolean code retrieval powers constant comparison; short theoretical memos capture each category's scope as it grows; a reflexivity journal documents the rationale for each round of theoretical sampling.
Phases
- Open coding
- Axial coding
- Selective coding
- Theoretical saturation
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Treat text as data and systematically categorise it — from manifest (surface
counts) to latent (meaning in context) — against a coding scheme you define up
front and apply consistently across the corpus.
Best for
A fixed analytic frame, reproducible counts, or comparing coverage of known categories across sources or time periods. Less suited to open-ended exploration.
In Resonance
A codebook-driven scheme, the code-frequency visualization for tallies and cross-tabulations, and Cohen's κ intercoder reliability to report consistency between coders.
Phases
- Sampling
- Unitising
- Coding scheme development
- Coding execution
- Reliability & validation
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Focus on how stories are told — the sequencing of events, the narrator's stance,
turning points, and the cultural scripts a narrative draws on. Coding happens at
the level of story segments, because meaning depends on the arc.
Best for
Biographical research, illness narratives, and identity work — where how people tell their experience is as important as what they describe.
In Resonance
Overlapping codes let a single stretch of transcript carry both a structural label (orientation, complication, resolution, coda) and a substantive theme; per-story analytic memos trace the telling and the analyst's own positioning.
Phases
- Transcribing
- Restorying
- Identifying themes / plot
- Interpretive synthesis
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A matrix-based approach popular in applied and policy research. After
familiarisation you build an analytic framework, then chart every case against
it in a two-dimensional matrix — rows are cases, columns are themes.
Best for
Systematically comparing a moderate number of cases against a pre-defined set of themes — evaluations, policy reviews, and service-improvement studies.
In Resonance
Coded segments plus the code-segment matrix export (XLSX) produce the chart you refine in Excel; the shared framework acts as a common language for multi-disciplinary teams.
Phases
- Familiarisation
- Identifying a thematic framework
- Indexing
- Charting
- Mapping & interpretation
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IPA is idiographic — it gives each participant's account full attention before
moving to cross-case patterns, with interpretative rather than descriptive codes
("struggling to be heard", not "talks to doctor").
Best for
A detailed interpretation of how a small number of people make sense of a significant experience — chronic illness, bereavement, or major life transitions.
In Resonance
A reflexivity journal for bracketing your preconceptions (write before each session, review at the end), and overlapping codes for passages that carry several meanings at once.
Phases
- Bracketing memo, per participant
- Close reading & annotation
- Emergent themes for a single case
- Structuring the case
- Patterns across cases
- Synthesis
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