Data Analysis Procedures

Data analysis is recognized as central in ethnographic study (Bryman and Burgess, 1994; Coffey and Atkinson, 1996; Dey, 1993; Huberman and Miles 1998). Brewer defined ‗analysis‘ as the process of bringing order to the data, organizing what is there into patterns, categories and descriptive units and looking for relationships between them (2000: 105). This process is similar to Huberman and Miles‘ (1998) processes of data reduction and data display. In this study, grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1990) serves as the general principles in analysis.

One of the distinguishing features of ethnographic analysis is ‗data analysis is simultaneous with data collection‘ (Brewer, 2000: 107). This means data analysis is not a distinct or separate stage of research process, but continuous and iterative.

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However, although data analysis is intertwined with and permeated into the data-collecting procedures, some key stages could be characterised and described as the following steps:

(1) Organizing the data into manageable units by index coding storytelling data and field notes into themes;

(2) Establishing patterns in the data by looking for recurring themes and the relationships between them;

(3) Developing a classification system of ‗open codes‘ based on developing typologies and taxonomies from the data;

(4) Categorizing the main themes according to the intensity or frequency of the themes on different stages;

(5) Examining variations and generating new concepts;

(6) Examining negative cases or deviant cases using Becker‘s terms (1998: 207); (7) Constantly comparing and contrasting with existing theories in the literature

and theorizing the patterns emerging from the data set.

In the initial stage of analysis, the first thing I did was immerse myself in the transcripts in their entirety format and details, to get the feel of the interview as a whole. Having familiarized myself with the whole set of the first batch of transcripts, I was index-coding the segments of the talk and seeking the similar pieces of the same code, which were put together in one pile with the assistance of pencil and scissors. Index coding, though not exactly an analytic process, is an indispensable step in searching for patterns of thought and action recurring in various situations.

Through perusing the range and depth of the data, I could identify a wide range of ideas and themes which seemed too much for one project, so a decision had to be made which themes and ideas were more promising and worth further exploring. I was advised to go back to my research questions to see if the data collected were

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substantial and rich enough to answer those questions and then identify recurrent patterns underlying the seemingly amorphous data. When I was selecting those important core themes, I also took into consideration the foreseeable linkages among the selected themes and the perceived significance to the field of intercultural learning. Once this list was generated and the links among the items were grouped thematically, I began sorting them according to the level of generality into a hierarchical framework of sub-themes, which stayed close to the terms and language used by the participants themselves.

When the themes and correlations between them were identified, I set about delineating sub-groups of taxonomies within a general category. Classification is a conceptual process (Dey 1993: 44-45). To classify is to break down the data into bits that relate together as classes that comprise concepts. Again, this stage of data analysis turned out to be very tricky. The whole process of data-collecting fieldwork was ethnographic in the sense that participants‘ words and behaviours were truthfully recorded and described without imposing any external constructs. But when came the analysis of this batch of raw amorphous data, the available theoretical concepts would stand in and seemingly fit well with the data. The mistakes I committed at this stage were, first, that I didn‘t feel confident or secure about the data collected and couldn‘t resist the temptation of labelling them with existing categories from the literature that I started to review at that time; second, the categories from the existing literature relating to the topics were too abstract for the following analytical process to be fully grounded in the data. These problems, fortunately, were pointed out by my supervisors, and were rectified in time. It was gradually getting clear that some phenomena and issues were not covered in previous literature and needed new concepts to categorize them. In Appendix IV, I use charts to illustrate this analysis process and the thematic structures in the fashion of hierarchical categories, which led to the development of the next chapters of this thesis.

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deductive reasoning. ‗In both cases the research system is closed with reference to the theoretical system‘ (Agar, 2000:35). According to Agar, ethnography should be abductive, a term invented by Charles Peirce, one of the founders of American pragmatism, around the turn of the century (Hookway, 1992, cited in Agar, 2000: 35). Abduction is about the modification or development of frames that explain Agar calls what ‗rich points‘, which are the problems in understanding and need resolution. So abduction emphasizes the development of new theoretical propositions to account for material that the old propositions didn‘t map onto. ‗No abduction, no ethnography‘ (Agar, 2000: 40).