Qualitative data analysis is the process of closely scrutinizing and interpreting qualitative data with the aim of transforming it into findings and conclusions, generally presented as thick descriptions, overarching themes, and detailed investigations of varying sociocultural realities. To engage in this process, a researcher must have a dataset that is amenable to qualitative analysis. Such a dataset is typically comprised of nonnumeric data like audio- and video-recordings of interactions; interviews; transcriptions (written representations of people’s speech and activities); field notes from observations and/or participant observations; images (photos, screenshots); and other textual data from the field (letters, emails, reports, signage, and other types of messaging, etc.).This is in direct contrast with quantitative data analysis, for which researchers use data that is amenable to statistical analysis and other types of numerical and predictive measurements (continue in PDF)