Teaching Qualitative Data Analysis Through Gaming

The purpose of this article is to describe the use of a party game, adapted by the two authors, to teach qualitative data analysis in consulting and classroom settings. The value of this exercise lies in its narrative construction outcomes. Qualitative methodologists frequently advise students to find the story of their study, but that task is often elusive given the overwhelming magnitude of data collected, and research novices often have difficulty grasping basic principles of qualitative analysis. Games are metaphors for life, and the activity described here and other games reviewed in this article are metaphors for the disparate and sometimes idiosyncratic data we collect in the field, and how we must pattern, unify, and make interpretive sense of them by constructing plausible organizational arrays and interrelationships. Flavor bites and dialogue from the participants attest that these are positive and beneficial learning exercises.