How do you teach inductive qualitative analysis?

I conduct qualitative data analysis on focus groups. My process is a bit messy. I find programs can be helpful in organizing data, but that's it. Sometimes I simply print it if it's a smaller sample. It really depends what i'm working with.

I've been asked to teach this process to a student, but I am struggling to do it in a meaningful way. For example, telling the student to identify patterns after reading the documents a few times, and then to do multiple rounds of code revision is useful, but also an obvious step (in my view). I'm struggling to help the student understand how to identify patterns beyond simplistic 'positive' vs 'negative' viewpoints and to code for both process vs patterns.

Maybe this speaks to problems with my messy approach, but i've been doing this for so long, teaching it feels difficult for me. I'm not sure how to proceed.

Any advice? Resources?

Posted Jun 12, 2026, 12:56 PM UTC

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