Causal relationships are traditionally examined in quantitative research. However, this article informs the discussion surrounding the potential use of qualitative data to explore causal relationships qualitatively through an empirical illustration of a school leadership development team. As school leadership development is supposed to offer continuing development to practicing school leaders, it brings into question the issue of causal relationships. This study analyzes audio and video recordings from 10 workshops involving a team of principals, municipality leaders, and researchers who met over two years to support the principals in leading a local school improvement program. The process data are organized into episodes and analyzed in three layers of causation an interpretative layer, a contradictory layer, and an agentive layer grounded in cultural-historical activity theory. When tracing a problem statement across episodes and relating the processes to events in a principal’s practice, causal relationships became visible across the episodes and contexts. The argument, then, is that the results are achieved in the processes. As such, process data can reveal causal relationships that quantitative data cannot.

传统上，因果关系是在定量研究中检查的。但是，本文通过对学校领导力发展团队的实证说明，为围绕定性数据潜在使用以定性探究因果关系的讨论提供了参考。由于学校领导能力的发展应该为执业的学校领导者提供持续的发展，因此引发了因果关系的问题。这项研究分析了10个讲习班的音频和视频记录，这些讲习班由一组校长，市政领导和研究人员组成，他们开会了两年，以支持校长领导当地的学校改善计划。过程数据被组织为情节，并在三层因果关系中进行分析：解释层，矛盾层，以及基于文化历史活动理论的主体层。当在情节中追踪问题陈述并将过程与事件相关联时，因果关系在情节和上下文中变得可见。因此，论据是取得了成果在过程中。这样，过程数据可以揭示定量数据所不能提供的因果关系。