Familiarisation

Ritchie and Spencer (1994) recommend that in the familiarisation stage the researcher must become familiar with the range and diversity of the data in order to ‘gain a feel for the material as a whole’ (pg 178). I started this stage of the process by re- familiarising myself with the data in the form of the transcripts (life story interviews, structured interviews, focus groups interviews, semi-structured interviews). It would have been easy to feel overwhelmed by the volume of data. I avoided this by analysing the data following the order in which they had been constructed. Being the only researcher, transcriber and analyst in the project was advantageous as I was not familiarising myself with data constructed by other researchers. The only exception to this was the data constructed by staff during the staff-to-staff interviews as previously described.

I was systematic in that there was an overall order in which I analysed the data during the familiarisation stage and subsequent stages of Framework Analysis. However, there was a moving back and forth as I revisited the data analysed earlier in the process to recheck the concepts that emerged as being of importance. This is recommended when using the Framework approach (Spencer, Ritchie and O’Connor, 2003).

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Discovery, dream and design data constructed with residents

Life story interview data Structured interview data

Focus group data

Discovery, dream and design data constructed with staff

Structured interview data Focus group data

Destiny data

Semi structured interview data (Residents and staff at North House) Focus group data (Residents at North House)

Focus group data (Residents at Edward Court)

Table 25: Overall order of data analysis

During the familiarisation stage I re-engaged with the way in which the life story interviews were constructed in a similar way to the narrative of a novel or a play. There were key characters, dramatic events and an emotive undercurrent to each account. Each life story was an emotive account of how individual had endeavoured to live with meaning and purpose. The subsequent data constructed in the structured interviews and focus groups provided extended versions of the life story of each individual up until the present time.

As I continued to familiarise myself with the data I consolidated my view of each care home being similar to a self-contained village; which I had observed earlier in the data construction process.

In my discussion with TW [supervisor] today I described how North House could be described as a village, with different characters in different roles moving about the place. I don’t know if this is a view that I will keep as the study progresses but it is helpful for now. (Field notes NH/ST/1)

During the familiarisation stage I was mindful of Ritchie and Spencer’s (1994) warning that ‘even where the analyst has been the sole interviewer, it is likely that recollections

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will be selective and partial’ (pg 178). As the data had been collected over an 18 month period I had a good recollection of the interviews, the dynamics of the interviews and the physical setting of each interview. It was particularly important to familiarise myself with the data that had been constructed in one-off interviews with some members of staff, with whom I had spent less time engaging with during the study.

During this stage I noted ‘key ideas and recurring themes’ that related to meaning and purpose in the residents’ lives (Ritchie and Lewis, 1994). For example I annotated transcripts with reference to:

 The frequent discussion of activities at North House, I noted this with an accompanying question ‘Do these activities add to meaning and purpose?’ I did not want to assume that just because an aspect of care home life was mentioned often that this meant that it added meaning and purpose to life.

 The value placed on meeting other people, I added a comment to this annotation a query as to the impact of mobility. As the focus of the study was to identify aspects of care home life where meaning and purpose could be enhanced I was conscious of identifying features that were currently impactful.

 Where attendance at the Church service was mentioned I added two additional points, did this relate to meaning and purpose related to religious faith, the social aspects of the meeting or a combination of both? Again I was conscious as this stage of familiarisation to avoid ‘jumping to conclusions’, instead I focussed on the questions stimulated as a result of my early observations of the data.

 Connection with others was a recurring theme. This related to a wide range of relationships; other residents, family and staff.

 The value of the humanity of each resident. This ‘idea’ was implicit in statements that residents made about themselves and how the value that they perceived other people attributed to them.

As a result of undertaking the familiarisation stage of data analysis, I had constructed some ideas inductively from the data. However, during this process I had been mindful

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of the concepts included in the initial conceptual frameworks ‘value of human life and dignity’, ‘connection with others’, ‘sense of self’. There was therefore a deductive aspect to this stage of data analysis.

I noted the key ideas and themes with reference to the data constructed with residents and then noted where these ideas were evident in the data constructed with staff. I made this decision as throughout the study the focus was the residents’ construction of how meaning and purpose in their lives could be enhanced. By focussing on the issues prioritised by residents I was able to explore how the care home staff could support the enhancement of support for these aspects of care home life.

Using the principles of appreciative inquiry I constructed a phrase that encapsulated the outcome of the above process of familiarisation with the data; ‘striving for wholeness’. This phrase was developed from an earlier phrase used as a heuristic device ‘stories of wholeness’ as described in my Field notes:

Looking back at the three phrases that I constructed at the end of data construction with the residents at North House, I am now reconsidering the phrase ‘stories of wholeness’. At that time in the study I had undertaken the life story interviews and the structured interviews, we had also engaged in the first focus group. However, now that I am further on in the study and we have undertaken the actions I can see that the residents weren’t just telling me a passive story of wholeness- they were and are engaging in an ongoing process of STRIVING FOR WHOLENESS. I have to write those words in bold as they are so important to my understanding of what adds meaning and purpose to Care home life (Field notes: NH/DA/8)

This phrase is built using the principles of appreciative inquiry in that it reflected the residents’ accounts of their reality (constructionist principle). The narrative and evocative nature of this phrase demonstrates the poetic principle of Appreciative Inquiry. The Appreciative Inquiry principle of simultaneity is incorporated in the phrase ‘striving for wholeness’ as it was relevant to both the individuals’ experience of being involved in the study and the experience of the community of residents and staff involved in the study. The future orientated focus of the statement is congruent with the anticipatory principle. The positive principle is evident in the positive nature of the statement. This phrase was a heuristic device during the next stage of framework analysis required identification of a thematic framework.

152 Stage 2: Identifying a thematic framework

Spencer, Ritchie and O’Connor (2003) describe Framework analysis as ‘conceptual scaffolding’ (pg 213). The initial conceptual frameworks were my original ‘map of the territory being investigated. As [my] knowledge of the terrain improved the map became correspondingly more differentiated and integrated’ (Miles, Huberman and Saldaña 2014 pg 20). They go on to describe how the conceptual framework developed at the beginning of a study evolves as the study progresses. In order to develop the thematic framework to be used in the data analysis process beyond the initial conceptual framework (Fig 2), I reflected on the key ideas that I had noted in the familiarisation stage. I used these ideas to inform the merging and modification of the initial conceptual frameworks to produce a thematic framework to guide the analysis of data (Fig 6).

I removed concepts from the initial conceptual frameworks that did not appear to be significant in my familiarisation with the data that had been constructed. ‘Faith in God’, ‘ability to skilfully confront death’ and ‘legacy’ seemed to have little presence in the data. I was surprised by this as I had assumed that these spiritual, end of life aspects of living with meaning and purpose would be aspects that the care home residents would have discussed in their interviews. Other concepts that I also excluded were ‘nature’, ‘solitude’ and’ food’; I repeatedly checked back with the two initial conceptual frameworks to ensure that I had not too hastily excluded a concept. On reflection I was premature in removing ‘nature’ and ‘solitude’, these concepts were subsequently reconsidered and subsumed in the concept of physical environment.

Figure 6: Second version of conceptual framework (2a)

Resident(s)

Staff

Physical setting

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At this stage in the data analysis process the thematic framework for data analysis was constructed of ‘broad brush’ strokes and became more refined during the subsequent stage of ‘indexing’. The different perspectives of residents and staff were represented by including the upper and lower boxes in the diagram of the thematic framework. This demonstrated that both perspectives impacted on the way in which each theme could enhance meaning and purpose in the lives of residents. I also used ‘resident(s)’ in the diagram to indicate that the perspective and experience could be that of an individual resident or more than one resident.