Clustering

When no more emergent themes were evident across all the transcripts, the emergent themes were clustered into super-ordinate themes. The cumulative table of emergent themes was copied and cut up into separate strips each containing the various transcript references for each emergent theme. These were grouped into tentative super-ordinate themes, imagining the emergent themes were like magnets, drawing each other towards particular clusters of themes in a variety of ways. Smith, Flowers and Larkin call this process “abstraction” (p. 96), where patterns between emergent themes are identified and given a new name, exemplified in this thesis by clusters such as ‘training’, ‘access’ or ‘identity’.

Clusters also emerged through a process Smith, Flowers and Larkin call “polarization” (p. 97) in which opposing relationships are identified such as ‘time’ or ‘lack of time’, which were grouped under the superordinate theme of ‘resources’. Super-ordinate themes also emerged through “contextualisation” by role, setting or time line for example, ‘past, present and future musical identities’. The emergent themes were then ranked within each cluster according to the number of references made in each theme. This process, known as “numeration” (p. 98) served to highlight more recurring themes, although this was not necessarily an indicator of importance as it might equally reflect responses across a number of similar roles within the sample. Some themes were grouped on the basis of their “function” (p. 98) such as ‘self-starters’ or ‘innovators’.

Equally, whilst themes were grouped within clusters, some emergent themes overlapped with other clusters and this is reflected in the final write up. This highlights the

challenge of coding when the destination is not clear, and in hindsight clearer coding in providing more differential descriptors would have been helpful particularly in further distinguishing differences within themes.

I reviewed and revised my first attempt at clustering themes. Smith, Flowers and Larkin recommend that the paper trail leading up to the final analysis needs to be organised in such a way that another person could also review the process, in what they term a “virtual audit” (p. 183) or where such documents could be handed to another person, independent of the study, to verify that the analysis reflects the data from which it is derived. They point out that that the auditor is not seeking to find the definitive analysis as many interpretations are possible. In the case of doctoral research projects, they suggest that it is appropriate for supervisors to conduct “mini-audits” of their student’ work, checking their annotations and coding and analysing a transcript in part with a student, which was the case in this research.

IPA a time-consuming and demanding yet rewarding process. With hindsight and experience I would be more confident to reduce the number of interviews and seek to engage in a deeper level of analysis. As discussed earlier, sample size is something, which Smith, Flowers and Larkin acknowledge can be problematic for researchers sensitive to the empirical need for large sample sizes and acknowledge that novice researchers may not be working at deeper levels involving the microanalysis of words. This IPA study was a paper-based analysis, which Smith, Flowers and Larkin

recommend, although they acknowledge the increasing use of computer software packages such as NVivo15_{. However, they suggest that such use should be reserved for} more experienced researchers and not novice IPA researchers.

3.8 Summary

This chapter has examined the research rationale, aims, study design and methodological and analytical approaches of this thesis. It has highlighted the challenges and the benefits of the methods employed, and presented a summary of

15 Available at:

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findings from the survey as a prelude to the main focus of the study. With this in mind the thesis now moves on to consider the thematic analysis of interview data in detail.

Chapter Four

The Use of Music to Support Children with SEND in Mainstream

Primary Education

4.0 Introduction

The following three chapters present the findings of the IPA analysis. The discussion aims to provide a deeper understanding of participants’ practice and their different motivations and experiences of using music in support of children with SEND in the mainstream primary context. The discussion explores participants’ individual perceptions and understanding of such practice. It examines how these individual attitudes shape and are affected by wider institutional attitudes, practice and priorities in school music provision, education and learning support, and their effect on past, present and future individual musical practice in this context in an attempt to provide answers to the three research questions outlined in Chapter Three.

The present chapter focuses on the first of these questions, examining participants’ motivations and use of music, through their own accounts rather than any observation of their practice. From these individual accounts, an initial profile of practice emerges, facilitated by the systematic IPA approach. However, such practice was difficult to identify and define. Only a very small group of survey respondents reported using music as a specific learning support intervention or resource as defined in the previous chapter. In contrast, the survey identified a larger group of respondents who used music for a wide range of non-musical purposes but which, importantly, they did not consider to be directly linked to the support of children with SEND. This evidence appears to confirm anecdotal views about a lack of targeted musical use in learning support settings. However, this simple analysis hides a more complex picture, which was revealed through the semi-structured interviews with survey respondents and other participants who joined the study post survey. The discussion starts by addressing this issue. An overview of the key themes to emerge from this analysis is then provided, which forms the framework for the more detailed review of individual practice that follows.