The researcher as bricoleur will gather whatever data is at hand, experimen
ting and exploring to find answers to the questions he or she has set. With
computer in hand and new tools available, the researcher can readily combi
ne data types, moving beyond complementarity and simple triangulation. Data
may be transferred in either or both directions between NUD.IST (a program
to assist the analysis of qualitative data) and a spreadsheet or statistic
al package. Thus, analysis and interpretation ave enriched, and new ways of
thinking about data are laid open. Such techniques inevitably challenge tr
aditional assumptions about particular methods. But perhaps in the final an
alysis, all methods, other than those employed in reductionist, hypothesis
testing experiments, are essentially interpretive.