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- Title
Data is Expensive, Models are Cheap.
- Authors
Gerson, Elihu M.
- Abstract
Piling up large quantities of data without thinking about why they are being collected and how they are going to be analyzed is a very expensive waste of time and effort. Expecting a computer program to handle a large mass of unanalyzed data sensibly is a vain hope, if people can't do it, computer programs certainly can't. Analysis has to begin immediately with the first round of data, and it has to be kept up in parallel with data collection through the course of the study. Indeed, given a large and well-designed data base, computers could be used to help generate similarities and differences in the first place. Principal problems of using computers for qualitative research are not in dealing with the data, they are in developing theories, in making use of the data once the clerical tasks have been organized. A second conclusion is that the analysis and theory construction part of the work has to start when the second data point is collected. Waiting until the data collection is complete leads to great difficulties.
- Subjects
DATABASE management; ELECTRONIC data processing; DATABASE design; COMPUTER software; RESEARCH; DATABASES
- Publication
Qualitative Sociology, 1989, Vol 12, Issue 4, p411
- ISSN
0162-0436
- Publication type
Article