Analysis on trial

This paper describes work carried out in order to assess whether the approa ch taken to the analysis of qualitative data impacts upon the findings and their consequent interpretation. Three different approaches were used to an alyse the same dataset - a Holistic and Interpretive approach, a Cut and Pa ste approach and Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQD AS). We discuss the differences between the approaches themselves, their ou tput, the relative costs of adopting the three different approaches and the implications of the work.