Content analysis and coding

In breaking down the data, a content analysis of the policy documents was very helpful. In content analysis, the main goal is to “take a verbal, non-quantitative document and transform it into quantitative data” (Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2005, p. 164). Content analysis is a description of content of a policy (Pal, 1987). It seeks to lay out the policy’s goals, problem definition and intentions by looking at language content alone (Delaney, 2002). In addition, an historical analysis of policy documents was also useful. An historical analysis assumes that current policies are a product of their historical development and as such can only be understood by examining their historical evolution (Delaney, 2002). This is particularly the case in relation to the Cambodian national education policy documents.

When conducting a content analysis, one of the first steps is to come up with codes. In regards to the coding process, Cohen et al. (2005) state, “Approaches to content analysis are careful to identify appropriate categories and units of analysis, both of which will reflect the nature of the document being analyzed and the purpose of

research” (p. 164). The creation of the codes in this thesis was done through an iterative process whereby I read the documents and looked for common words, phrases, and ideas. Then I proceeded to develop codes and continued the process in a back and forth between the developing codes and the documents. This process allowed the codes to emerge from the data sources rather than being imposed on the documents.

The purpose of the content analysis in this thesis was to look for patterns in content between the policy directives of the multinational financial agencies and the most recent policies from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, such as the final draft of the 3rd Educational Strategic Plan, to help determine how much international influence impacted the Cambodian educational policy. Content analysis aids in breaking down the text of the policy into appropriate and manageable units of analysis, codes, to aid in the understanding of the role multinational financial agencies have played in the origin and adoption of Cambodian national education policy and how much, or if any, direct Cambodian concerns have been addressed.

The process of coding, described above, began after the collection of the documents to be used in the thesis. Bogdan and Biklen (1998) wrote about several families of codes and these were quite useful when developing codes. As a result, I will lay out these coding categories before discussing the ones I developed. First, Bogdan and Biklen identified a category of “setting/context” codes. These types of codes are used to identify the most general information on the setting, topic, or subjects in a policy or document under analysis. A second category of coding that Bogdan and Biklen identified and I used was the “perspectives held by subjects” grouping. These types of codes look for data that indicates a subject’s orientation toward a particular way of perceiving a situation. According to Bogdan and Biklen, these include shared rules and norms and

general points of view. For this thesis, this is very important in that I am interested in discovering if there are shared rules and points of view between the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sport in Cambodia and the multinational financial agencies.

A third category of coding parameters used in this thesis are “process” codes. These codes identify content that indicates a sequence of events, in this case the creation and adoption of a national education policy. Finally, the last category of codes that I utilized was “strategy” codes, which identify content that indicate a person, organization, or group’s tactics, methods, techniques, manoeuvres, ploys, or other conscious ways they accomplish certain things (Bogdan and Biklen, 1998).

Once I had settled on the type of coding categories, I set about creating my own codes within the allotted categories. I developed these codes on the basis of the

individual research questions. In terms of my primary research question, “to what extent is globalization influencing education policy development in post-conflict Cambodia”, I laid out three categories (see Table 1).

Table 3: Coding for research question 1

Setting/Context Perspectives held by subjects Process Codes

• amount of funding • donor names • loan names • receiver of loans • sources of funds • purpose of education (purpose statements, expansion, connection to economy, development)

• goal statements and objectives (directives, neo- liberal agenda, cultural, political, economic objectives)

• direction of education loans (supplies,

technology, language training, teacher training, expansion of facilities, privatization) • dates • timelines • implementation • results

Each of these codes was created to help answer the question listed above.

In relation to my second research question, “how have multinational agencies influenced national education policy making in post-conflict Cambodia?” I used codes in the “setting/context”, “perspectives held by subjects” and “strategy” categories.

Table 4: Coding for Research Question 2

Setting/Context Perspectives held by subjects Strategy Codes • amount of funding • donor names • loan names • receiver of loans • sources of funds • amount of education and international funding in relation to Cambodian economy • purposes of education • goal statements • purposes of loans vs. purposes of policy • restrictions of loans • conditions of loans

These codes relate primarily to the actions of the multinational financial organizations which is the main focus of question #2.

In relation to the third research question in this thesis, “whose needs are addressed in the policy documents and directives?” I focused on the “strategy” coding category. The main focus for this question involved looking at the restrictions attached to the loans; conditions of the loans; and needs. Has the policy been created to solely meet the needs of the lending agencies or has the Cambodian government been able to address some of their own needs. What type of education reform was conducted in Cambodia?

For the fourth research question in this thesis, “what have been the consequences of international influence on Cambodian national education policy?”, I focused on the coding categories of “perspectives held by subjects”. In terms of the codes for thi

Table 5: Coding for research question 3

Strategy Coding

Restrictions attached to loans

Conditions of loans Needs

• limits • accessibility of funds • privatization (school ownership and school location) • accountability • standard testing • teacher training • language of instruction • training programs • curriculum

question, I divided them further into the purposes of policy and purpose of loans (see table 6 below). The purpose of the two sub-categories was to allow for the comparison of findings between the two categories to see if the purposes of the loans matched to the purpose of the national policies, therefore addressing the above question.

These codes were created after reading through several documents from financial agencies and Cambodian ministries about what they perceived to be the needs of the Cambodian education system and population. I used these statements as the basis of formulating my codes for this question.

Table 6: Coding for research question 4

Perspectives held by subjects

Purposes of Policy Purposes of Loans

• expansion of elementary education (new programs, standardized testing, language, increased enrolment, literacy, expansion in rural areas)

• expansion of secondary and tertiary education (accessibility of degrees, increased accessibility, who is enrolled, ownership of institutions, language, connection to economy, instructors)

• what is money used for (expansion, new institutions, teacher training and salary, technology, specific programs)

• rises in statistical awareness (specific targets for key areas, literacy, numeracy, enrolment)

• standardization (ties to international programs and testing, language uses, expansion of international education partners)

The use of coding allowed me to break a vast amount of data into categories that were accessible and directly related to my research questions. This was the primary method that I used since, as was discussed above, my primary sources of data were documents. Therefore, I felt a content analysis was the most ideal way to work with my data. However, in addition to the content analysis, the original plan was to also get data from interviews, but as shall be discussed in the following section, this was not feasible at the research site.