Analysing and Coding the data

Coding is an interpretive technique that both organizes the data and provides a means to

interpret it using more quantitative techniques – for example, counting the frequency of certain

responses. Strauss and Corbin (1990, p.96) define coding as “a process by which data are

broken down, conceptualised and put back together in new ways.”

In qualitative research, coding is a fundamental part of data analysis. Barbara Merrill (Merrill and West, 2009) provides a helpful list of stages for data analysis of taped interviews. These include: listening to the tapes several times, reading through the transcripts of the stories and highlighting key paragraphs, sentences or words; thinking about the questions the data is generating; reading through the transcripts a second time and assigning codes; identifying the transcripts that need to be used; re-reading and coding the theoretical and conceptual frameworks and, finally, reflecting whether the data supports existing theory or suggests a new theory. (Merrill and West, 2009, pp.134-5)

Amanda Coffey and Paul Atkinson recommend three helpful stages in qualitative coding: “noticing relevant phenomena; collecting examples of those phenomena; and analysing those phenomena in order to find commonalities, differences,

patterns and structures.” (Coffey and Atkinson, 1996, p.29).

One of the most frequently used research theories associated with coding that is found within the literature is grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Strauss and Corbin, 1990). Strauss and Corbin postulated that the researcher should approach the field with a blank canvas and no pre-suppositions. The phenomenon affects the research as opposed to the researcher affecting the phenomenon. As part of grounded theory, everything is coded in order to find out what the problem is. The grounded theory researcher goes back and forth continually modifying the outcomes of the data and sharpening the growing theory which emerges. In this thesis, I do not adopt a complete grounded theory approach to coding and data analysis. Instead I employ an approach to coding and data analysis used by West (Merrill and West, 2009).

In contrast to grounded theorists, Linden West encourages subjects to think of themselves as active participants in producing the narratives. The epistemological question of how we can make sense of narrative material, obtained from auto/biographical interviews and other sources, can be answered in two ways. Firstly, the data can be broken down into its constituent parts in order to both manage its complexity and build insights. This is the view held by grounded theorists. The second way of making sense of the narrative material, not held by grounded

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theorists, is to try to understand the overall form, or ‘gestalt’20, in order to appreciate the detail more fully. Gestalt derives from the premise that there is a sort of order, form or patterning, or hidden agenda in lives, which can be found in our data (Holloway and Jefferson, 2000). If grounded theory moves from the bits to the whole, gestalt moves from the whole to the bits. In reality, understanding the narrative requires both (Merrill and West, 2009, p.135-6).

West rejects grounded theory as a complete solution to social research for two main reasons. Firstly he highlights the impracticalities of such a research method:

“I used grounded theory in earlier work, as I sought to manage the material gathered, over a period of years (West, 1996). Grounded theory seemed the solution, offering, in its very terminology, a way of rooting conceptual insight….Observations, sentences, paragraphs are coded, each element is given a name or coding and every coded item is then placed into a series of categories. My study, at home was overwhelmed with piles of paper, by codings and classifications to be endlessly worked and re-worked, constructed and re-constructed, in what seemed an endless play of possibilities. I felt lost.” (Merrill and West, 2009, p.136).

The second reason to reject grounded theory concerns an absence of gestalt in the process. Prematurely coding and disaggregating individual narratives, and aggregating these with material from other sources, carried a danger of losing some of the contextual meaning or wholeness (Gestalt) of the data. Rather each fragment was rendered more meaningful by reference to the ‘whole’. (ibid.)

In my interview with a parent about the success of Bishop Pritchard School, the Christian ethos of the school was never mentioned. As such it would not have been coded as a factor. However, I later discovered that this was very important to the parent and one of the reasons that she would attribute to the success of the school. Why had it not been mentioned? Like

many people, she felt that religion was very personal and something that you don’t talk about to

strangers in an interview. She felt that it was a ‘given’ and as it was a Church of England school, it was so obvious that it needn’t be said. It was a kind of hidden agenda. This information could not have been obtained with copying and pasting text or bits of paper in a process of continually disaggregating and aggregating pieces of data following a grounded theory approach. A big picture view, or gestalt, needed to be taken and further clarification sought from the interviewee.

West developed a proforma as ‘an analytic space in which to understand more of the whole’ (Merrill and West, 2009, p.137). It was divided into four main aspects or parts: themes, process, ethnographics and gestalt (see chapter 8 section I). Themes referred to the key moments in a biography or key events in the life of the organisation. Process referred to the nature of the

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The German word Gestalt ma est e t a slated as shape . O igi ati g f o the Be li S hool of E pe i e tal ps holog , Gestalt theo e phasises that the hole of a thi g is g eate tha its parts

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interaction between the interviewee and the researcher. The term ethnographics refers to the circumstances surrounding the interaction or interview. Finally, gestalt is concerned with the overall form and patterning in the material (Merrill and West, 2009, p.138).

In my research I used this template for all the auto/biographical interviews and conversations. I also applied the same technique to documentation (paper and electronic) about the school. The consistent application of this approach made comparison and interpretation easier. It was also more manageable than continually copying and pasting text into endless combinations and permutations. The results of this exercise are covered in Chapter 8. There are also two exemplars of the coding exercise in appendices J and K.

To supplement coding, I also used dialogical approaches to analyse the data with the interviewees. Barbara Merrill and Linden West give this definition:

“Dialogical approaches… actively seek to engage participants as explicit collaborators in processes of analysis, attempting to break down the power

relationship between researchers and researched.” (Merrill and West, 2009,

p.141).

It would certainly seem logical in my conversations with the headteachers, Chaplain, head of RE and long serving members of staff, to involve them in some process of analysis about what they are saying. To a large extent this would be subsumed in the auto/biographical interviews and would not be a discrete action. As ever, it would be wrong to view qualitative research as a series of separate packages which don’t link to each other. Rather, it is more helpful to see this sort of research as overlapping.