HI Jackie
I've come back to your post and thought I'd comment on some of your points about qualitative analysis. You are right that the themes that emerge are not under the control of the researcher on one level, but on another it has to be acknowledged that the topic guide used will have some influence on what emerges. Regarding the sample, qualitative research often takes a case study approach, looking at an issue in depth with a small sample and trying to explore and understand it. For example, you might take an issue such as chronic pain and explore it in narrative interviews with 30 people attending a hospital pain clinic. You cannot generalise from this but you can have a much better understanding of chronic pain experience in the context of people's lives.
Moira
