5.4 Processing, Analysis and Interpretation of Data

The processing's stages (the exam's sequence): (1) editing (the completeness-and-legibility check); (2) coding (the categories' assignment — the codebook's discipline; the qualitative themes' labelling); (3) classification-and-tabulation (the data's arrangement — the tables' construction); (4) data entry-and-cleaning (the digital era's chore — the double-entry checks, the outliers' inspection). The analysis: the descriptive (the data's own portrait), the inferential (the sample-to-population's logic — the significance's humility), the qualitative's thematicsynthesis (the themes' convergence-and-divergence). The interpretation — the bridge from data to meaning: the findings' return to the hypothesis (supported? falsified? complicated?); the literature's dialogue (the agreement's confirmation, the divergence's explanation); the alternative- explanations' honesty (the confounders confessed); the limits' declaration (the sample's reach, the instruments' imperfections); and the law's re-reading in the light — the findings' meaning for thelegal question (the reform's recommendation built on evidence, not enthusiasm). The exam'swarning:description is not analysis, and analysis is not interpretation — the three-storey answer.