Sources of Interactive Qualitative Analysis Affinity Pair Relationship Explanations During COVID-19

Abstract

This study investigates the implementation of the methodology, Interactive Qualitative Analysis (IQA) to understand how non-major accounting students learn Accounting 101 in a threshold concepts-inspired tutorial programme. Even though IQA is a predominantly qualitative method, it incorporates quantitative data with qualitative data systematically. These data collection and data analysis procedures are a means of aiding participants in a focus group to describe their experiences with a phenomenon, to name these experiences and to then describe the relationships between these named experiences. The objective of the IQA methodology is to create a picture, a Systems Influence Diagram (SID), representative of the mind map of the focus group participants, with regard to the phenomenon outlined in the issue statements. A summary of theoretical codes used to capture the relationships between affinities named, an Inter Relationship Diagram (IRD), is used to draw the SID. This study describes how the IQA methodology was implemented using an online platform, during the COVID-19 pandemic, to collect data regarding the explanations of each affinity pair relationship identified.

Keywords: Non-major accounting students, Interactive Qualitative Analysis, Affinity Pair Relationships, Explanations, Systems Influence Diagram, Threshold Concepts Tutorial Programme