Using Association Rules Mining to Facilitate Qualitative Data Analysis in Theory Building

The richness captured in qualitative data is a key strength of the qualitative approach to theory building. However, given the nature of qualitative data, it is typically not apparent to qualitative researchers as to how quantitative techniques could be used to facilitate the identification of strong relationships between concepts that are embedded in the data. This typically leads to the formulation of theoretical propositions that are often rich in detail, yet lacking in simplicity. In addition, the researcher faces the daunting task of developing persuasive arguments to justify the findings. This chapter proposes a systematic procedure toward qualitative data analysis to facilitate developing propositions in theory building. Specifically, we demonstrate how researchers can take advantage of quantitative data analysis techniques such as association rules (AR) mining to identify strong concept relationships from qualitative data. The proposed procedure is illustrated using a case study in the public health domain.

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