Analyzing and communicating action research data: Practical approaches to conveying the quality and texture of experience

Abstract

This paper presents an approach to analyzing action research data which navigates a key challenge; how to convey both the texture and the quality of experience in order to develop theory and practice, where the texture describes individual themes and issues and the quality describes the holistic, rich, felt experience. The examples used in this paper are drawn from a co-operative inquiry group which was exploring the quality of encounter between leader and follower. The aim of this project was to contribute to relational leadership theory and practice through deepening our understanding of moment-by-moment experience in the ‘space-between’ leader and follower. In order to facilitate this, two specific methods called five-column analysis and key moment analysis were developed. They are recommended in this paper as practical approaches to address the desire to both develop theory explicitly through identification of themes whilst doing justice to the richness of experience.