b Step 2 : Initial noting and explanatory comments

As IPA has an idiographic focus, when one case was completed I moved to the next as a ‘fresh’ case. I left a day or sometimes two between each transcription so I would not be influenced by what had appeared in the preceding transcript, as I was aware that I may unconsciously start to look for similarities in the following transcript. Noting on each transcript involved an examination of each line of text with exploratory comments made next to the text, similar to a free textual analysis. I conducted most of my analysis on the computer, using Word and Excel spreadsheets. I could print these off for reading and noting manually before adding comments on to the computer version. In this way I also maintained a clear ‘audit trail’, discussed in section 3.10, of each stage of interpretation so that my steps in data analysis could be tracked throughout the research process. To strengthen the coherence of my analysis, my primary supervisor received and

commented upon each part of my analysis as it was completed.

My initial noting on the transcripts highlighted three different components of text: descriptive, linguistic and conceptual. I used normal font to highlight descriptive

comments of what the participant said, including emotional responses, assumptions and figures of speech.

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Linguistic comments were noted in italics and focused on specific use of language, including how the participant presented meaning, tone, pauses, the Arabic words that were interjected, and metaphors used. Participants frequently spoke in powerful

metaphors as important signifiers of meaning (Cheshire, Kerswill, Fox & Torgersen, 2011; Goffman, 1959), for example Sara (SoN, Transcript C), frequently described her

experiences in terms of her ‘colours’.

Conceptual comments and my own thoughts were underlined, as a marker for further interrogation and investigation. Understanding conceptual comments required skills of reflexivity as ideas had to be sifted and refined so that the participant’s world emerged into focus. I found that I often stopped during conceptual noting to ask myself questions. For example, when participants were describing various incidents that had taken place in the hospitals, I would often pause and ask myself what I would have done in a similar situation. Reflexivity was also regularly applied to ensure that any interpretations I made at this stage arose from the participants’ words, and were not brought in from the outside.

Table 3.5 overleaf provides an example of my initial noting and commenting on an

interview transcript. Notes and comments were made in a right hand column against the transcribed narrative. Possible themes as ideas and suggestions are noted at this stage in the middle column as the transcript is read, re-read and noted.

Page | 64 Transcript 1 (Mai) School of Medicine page 8 Possible theme Initial noting/ comments …guy are talking and so there must be something going

on between us…It’s just like… it’s wrong .. no matter what the relationship is… it’s like if you share an office with a male it’s like oh you’re sharing your office with a male?! … How is that possible? And things like that! (Laughs) So The Look is like people directly mark you as a semi-bad girl and different… I think … I don’t want to say that they are closed minded… but I don’t think that they have enough exposure …they are limited to a specific type of thinking and erm like I wish like I could take them all and put them as an audience when we are having our normal life to make it clear to them that it doesn’t work that way… so they need to like understand that this is how it

goes…Some actually want this… some want that… like some of the …we were four and me and my friend went back to our old school… but there were two others who stayed, so the girls there wanted to meet them and be friends with them because they wanted to meet the guy friends to understand how that works and how that type of world goes... but some wouldn’t even want to talk to them because they were just like ‘bad girls’…yeah so…

Relationships males/females: Cultural taboos Bad girls

Cultural taboos People think that if a male and female are communicating there must be a relationship between them

-She doesn’t agree with

this way of thinking and wonders about how they can think like this

The Look marks you as a semi-bad girl

She thinks people who think like this are insular and limited in thinking

Feels that she wants to change this way of thinking

How do cultural norms describe a good/bad girl?

Ascribed female binary oppositions

Table 3.5. Step 2 in IPA data analysis: An example of initial noting and commenting on a transcript indicating descriptive, linguistic and conceptual text.

3.9.1.c Step 3 : Developing emergent themes and clustering into superordinate