Expanding the Triptych - PECE as Analysis

Interviewees characterized the questions and analytic functions of PECE as the heart of the platform. PECE provides a kaleidoscopic view of one’s data— interviewees sought to see their own (and others’) data in different ways, allowing them to form different ideas from the data. Interviewees also valued the inspiration that can come with randomness when an unrelated or juxtaposing idea leads to new insights. Beyond connections across data, interviewees valued that random and juxtaposing artifacts on PECE could also lead to new and surprising connections with other researchers.

In the eyes of our interviewees, education and service to students are crucial to the mission and value of PECE. All of the people we spoke with had used PECE in a classroom context. The platform is particularly suited to making the analytic process visible in support of beginner researchers, or other people who are not familiar with open-ended, ethnographic qualitative research processes. The interpretive processes facilitated by PECE stand in contrast to the majority of available qualitative analysis software, which tends to focus on coding and quantifying qualitative research or on settling meanings as quickly as possible. The baked-in analytic values of PECE help students see that adding questions after the data is collected is a part of the process, rather than a way of “cheating” science. 

A fundamentally collaborative process of analysis continues to draw our interviewees to using PECE. While in some cases the direct process of collaboration occurs mostly off of the platform via a supplementary ecosystem of tools, PECE is what holds communities of researchers together and structures their workflow.