Order 1000984: Part 3: The Analysis and Interpretation of Qualitative Data

       

     

       

       

                                                             

                                           

                                             

                               

                                           

                                                           

                                                     

             

                                         

                                                         

                                         

                                                       

                     

                                               

                         

       

                                                         

         

Second Cycle Coding

Second  Cycle Coding Program Transcript

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SUSAN MARCUS: Hi, this  is  Dr. Susan Marcus. And now we're going to begin our   second cycle coding process. Before we begin, we'll just do a quick  review of what we've accomplished so far.

In this  spreadsheet, you can see that I've got the questions  that I'm analyzing all highlighted, the line numbers, the responses  pulled out from  the interview to answer   each question, my  codes  for  the two kinds  of first cycle coding that I've completed, descriptive coding and concept coding, as  well as  my memos. I also have at the bottom   of this  sheet, the brief summary  of my  impressions  of this  interviewers  answers, as  well as  direct quotes  from  the transcripts  to exemplify  my summary. You can also see that I've done this  for  all of the participants  in my  study. So you'll see on the bottom  that for   each participant, I have a tab labeling their  interview.

So now we're ready  to begin our  second cycle coding. And this  is  an opportunity  to look   at the data from yet another  point of view. Rather  looking at each person's transcript and responses, we're going to look  by  question across  participants.

So in order  to do that, first we have to set up another  spreadsheet. We'll use the same template-­-­ question line, number, response. But this  time, we'll move the content from   each person's answers  so that every  person's answers  are under  one question.

So you can see that I've have color  coded. This  is  participant 1. This  is  participant 2. And I've done that for  each of the questions.

So we were working with four  questions. You see I have these on tabs-­-­ Q1, Q2, 3, 4, and 4a. And here this  is  a better  illustration of you can see where the question is, all of participant 1's responses-­-­ interviewee 1-­-­ and then all of the interviewee 2's responses. I've also brought with me my  codes  from  the first cycle. And I've created a third column for  what I'll be coding next. Here, by  organizing the data in this  way, I can actually  read through from  cell to cell to cell across  cases to see if I can start to observe patterns  or   similarities  in what people were saying and how they  were saying it.

So I'm going to do my  second cycle using pattern coding. So pattern coding is  the opportunity  to look  at the data from  a different point of view and look  for  words  and phrases  across  participants  that are similar  or  have shared meaning. So in particular, I'm seeing words  like "helping,"  "making a difference,"  "enjoyment,"  "volunteering,"  and I'll highlight those.

OK. So now that I've identified the pieces  of text that I think  will be appropriate and helpful to identifying patterns, I'm going to label those potential patterns. And I do this  in the second cycle patterns  column.

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Second Cycle Coding

So here as  I read through this  and I see my  highlighted "wanting to be there to help,"  I might call this  possible pattern the pattern of wanting to help. Here I see that I've highlighted "I'm never, ever  going to work  at a school."  The question comes  up, "can I see myself as  a social change agent?"  When I see what I've highlighted here, "I enjoy   doing it,"  there's an expression of joy  as  a potential pattern. And I go through the rest of the text making an interpretation of the text that I've highlighted.

Sometimes  it's not a very  evocative interpretation. And again, sometimes  I'll capture or   use a particular  phrase that was  written in the text-­-­ that I "did not feel like I was  making a difference."  And here, in his  reflections  on his  line of work, here's a potential pattern of personal reflection and the emergence of social consciousness.

And I do this  for  each of the questions  across  the participants. And once that's completed, I'll have a second Excel spreadsheet with all of my  codes  organized by  each question. And you can see, again, I have the tabs  for  each question and the highlights   and the complete codes.

So we've just completed our  second cycle coding. And again, this  was  an opportunity  to look  at our  data from  another  perspective and to generate ideas  for  patterns  across   participants  that can be used and combined in order  to create themes  for  interpretation.

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