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Encyclopedia of Social Network Analysis and Mining pp 124–133Cite as

Collecting Qualitative Data for Social Network Analysis and Data Mining

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Synonyms

Description; Generating data

Glossary

Data:

Recorded observations

Qualitative Data:

Non-numeric data in the form of words

Introduction

There is a multitude of methods for collecting qualitative data for researchers who conduct social network analysis and data mining. Qualitative data refer to “essence of people, objects, and situations” (Miles and Huberman 1994, p. 9), and data are obtained in the forms of observation, interviews, or documents and then analyzed by the researcher to derive meaning (Miles and Huberman 1994). According to Hollstein (2011) in her chapter entitled “Qualitative Approaches” in the Sage Handbook of Social Network Analysis, “From the outset, network research has made use of qualitative data, less structured approaches to data collection, and interpretive methods in describing and analyzing social networks” (p. 404).

To assist novice researchers in understanding the process of collecting qualitative data, Creswell (2013) presents “The Data Collection...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education and Human Development, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, USA

    Nancy L. Leech

  2. Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, Fayetteville, AR, USA

    Kathleen M. T. Collins

  3. Department of Educational Leadership and Counseling, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX, USA

    Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie

Authors
  1. Nancy L. Leech
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  2. Kathleen M. T. Collins
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  3. Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Reda Alhajj

  2. Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Jon Rokne

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Leech, N.L., Collins, K.M.T., Onwuegbuzie, A.J. (2014). Collecting Qualitative Data for Social Network Analysis and Data Mining. In: Alhajj, R., Rokne, J. (eds) Encyclopedia of Social Network Analysis and Mining. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6170-8_395

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