‘Kaleidoscopic gazing’ techniques: the practice of creative data analysis innovation

This article offers new insights for researchers wishing to practically analyse qualitative data both manually and creatively. Drawing on a longitudinal, constructivist grounded theory PhD study about students’ transition experiences from Further to Higher Education, the article offers the innovative model of ‘Kaleidoscope Gazing’ to provide an account of how complex datasets might be puzzled through and, as such, augments current approaches to grounded theory. The kaleidoscope metaphor is a fresh way of considering social phenomenon and can be used as a tool for grasping the complexity, ambiguity, and fluidity of individual’s situated experiences in multifarious contexts. It facilitates the piecing together of patterns of similarity and difference in the reported experiences of participants and helps to ‘visualise’ the myriad of factors affecting their worlds. Manually working with complex datasets offers new ways of perceiving connections within them and affords more nuanced and deeper understandings. This model is intended to be used as a training tool for both novice researchers seeking guidance about how to understand and analyse their qualitative datasets, and those more experienced researchers looking for alternative avenues through which to explore their data in more depth.