Focussed coding

Charmaz (2011, p. 57) describes focussed coding “as the second major phase in coding.” In this phase data is reformed through the grouping of codes to create concepts and listed under a subcategory heading.

Concepts comprise the classification of items within the data that were interpreted as sharing “some common properties”, (Allan 2003, p. 3, Corbin and Strauss 2015, p. 76). Comparing each of the concepts with others and, linking together those that were perceived to have

similarities, led to the identification of a number of higher order themes or sub-categories, from the transcripts. An example of this is where the concepts of Interacting with others, Showing an affinity for colleagues and Being aware of other’s abilities were grouped together to form the sub-category of “Awareness Of Others”. This process of discovering interconnections between concepts provided the basis for building the theory (Allan 2003, Bryman, 2012) and an

explanation of how this abstraction was undertaken for all the data will be provided in the following chapter.

In order to undertake this, a structural framework, was not followed in order to ensure that the exploratory nature of coding was maintained and not restricted, as has sometimes been suggested in relation to Strauss and Corbin’s axial coding (Bryman 2012).

Instead Charmaz’s lead was once again followed through using initial and then focused coding. This led to the construction of sub-categories and categories that reflected “how I made sense of the data” (Charmaz 2014, p. 148), with the resultant theory generated grounded in the data as it was interpreted from it and no other preconceived hypothesis. A visual

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imagery tool was devised, for the purposes of this study, to record the categories that developed from the data analysis.

This tool was entitled “Locating the categories” and a copy of this is included in Appendix 8. This provided a tiered approach to recording the themes based on their presence in the data. The themes that were constructed as core to the data were documented in the centre box. These were a combination of interpersonal issues and process driven ones. The interpersonal themed issues were also in the middle box and process driven ones on the periphery. These were positioned in this way due to the interpretation of the meanings applied by participants to them during the interviews.

Tentative connections between the concepts were constructed and were modified as new information and fresh insight became available through the process of constant comparison. As discussed previously, the codes and concepts that emerged from the data were also recorded on a spreadsheet. Due to the vast amount of data that this comprised I was concerned that the emergent sub-categories could potentially be lost within this recording and, as a result, devised a means of separating them out from the rest of the data for ease of continued comparison and

contrasting of the findings.

The “Locating the categories” tool was therefore completed for each service, offering assurance of a visual tool to refer to in order to quickly note the development of the sub-categories and identify areas where additional information to populate them could be sought from the

participants. This allowed the data to be considered in a more flexible way through visualising the connections between them.

In particular, the strength of the systemic functions; strategically, organisationally and environmentally, on the development of

interprofessional collaboration emerged at this point, recognising how the stressors attributed to these functions actually, when explored further,

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had a positive effect on the development of interprofessional collaboration. This impact of the stressors, on developing

interprofessional collaboration, emerged as an unexpected outcome and will be explored further in sub-chapters 6a-d.

Further abstraction of the information provided in the concept

spreadsheet and “Locating the categories” tool took place to later merge them to produce figure 5 “The Formation of Higher Order Categories” diagram which summarises the process of abstracting the findings from initial coding to core category stages, and ultimately creating building blocks for theory generation.

The content of these categories will be explored further in the next chapter along with the rest of the findings. However, ultimately the sub- categories were merged together in order to eventually identify a core category of “Facilitating Interaction”.

The emergence of “Facilitating Interaction” reinforced Glaser and Holton’s view (2004), that a core category is central to as many of the other categories as possible, occurring frequently in the data and creating a stable pattern that relates to the other variables.

When the data within the original two core categories were reviewed further it was noted that underlying all actions and decisions made by the participants in relation to interprofessional collaboration, was the impact that each had on “Facilitating Interaction” between them, at an interpersonal level. This underpinned the social processes articulated by the participants, whether these were at micro, meso or macro levels and led to the emergence of this as a core category.

The interactions were multiple and took place on a variety of different levels with colleagues within and outside of their immediate team. Whilst all the categories contributed to the creation and maintenance of

interprofessional collaboration, the key aim of the participants appeared to be to maintain consistency through interacting with others. The

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stability of this could be affected by other individuals, resources or strategic decisions. The significant impact of internal and external

stressors on the participants, as individuals and as part of a social group when collaborating, will be explored further in sub-chapter 6c.