Application of Constant Comparison Method in Social Sciences: A Useful Technique to Analyze Interviews

Abstract

In Social Sciences, interviews are an important technique for collecting data as they deal with meanings, whereas quantitative data deals with numbers (Dornyei, 2007). As, interviews focus on meanings attributed to this by individuals so, it becomes a matter of high importance to address the question of how do we conceptualize those meanings (Rose 1994) and also how reliable these findings are. Although, these are important issues, many studies give relatively less value to them. This paper is an attempt to demonstrate applicability of Maykut and Morehouse’s (1994) ‘Constant Comparative Method’ as one technique to analyze interviews. It also proposes some useful ways to establish reliability in data. This is aimed to help researchers in social sciences to use it to deal with qualitative data.