Sociology

Qualitative research

Theology

Scrutiny

Value (mathematics)

LEAPS

Qualitative analysis

Social science

Financial economics

Operating system

Epistemology

Machine learning

Philosophy

Abductive reasoning

Management

Psychology

Economics

Computer science

Task (project management)

Process (computing)

Qualitative Inquiry

Analysis is the active and interpretive process or processes researchers undertake with research evidence that leads to what sense is made and what meanings are assigned. When I was involved in my PhD research, it seemed that many off-task activities contained connections to my particular study—I noticed them and they stimulated steps—sometimes leaps—forward in my analysis. What is thought important from the scrutiny of evidence depends, in part, on researcher responses to happenings beyond the study. In this article, I identify three conditions of analysis that may increase the likelihood of such connections occurring to researchers, which link to abductive analysis: take your time, value prompts from “off-task” influences, and backward map.

Abductive Analysis in Qualitative Inquiry