Interview Analysis

The overall interview analysis followed a systematic, step-by-step analysis process³⁹ described by Miles and Huberman (1994) which involves the identification of: codes, themes, and categories; leading to within-case analysis and cross-case analysis

Coding is the organisation of raw data into conceptual categories. Each code is effectively a category or “bin” into which a piece of data is placed. As Miles and Huberman (1994) noted: “Codes are tags or labels for assigning units of meaning to the descriptive or inferential information compiled during a study; codes are usually attached to “chunks” of varying size – words, phrases, sentences or whole paragraphs” (p.56).

The goal of the interview analysis was to isolate a meaningful set of motivations, so that the common and divergent implications can be drawn. The implementation of energy efficiency measures in the private housing offer could respond to different motivations, and these motivations could be expressed in several different ways. Therefore, the emphasis of this research was placed on contrasting empirical findings with key concepts drown from the review of state of the art. This required careful considerations of the subtle differences among interviewees’ opinions, in order to stress the relationship between their motivations and the diverse energy efficiency strategies applied in their housing projects.

39 The work of Mostyn (1985) presents a similar step-by-step process; the author calls it a “Recipe” for the content analysis of open-ended data (p.133). Steps 7 (Categorization) through 12 (Writing) are consistent with the interview analysis conducted in this research.

The main unit of analysis was the information provided by company managers or project managers during the interviews. The most important contents of this information are fourfold; first, real estate developers’ motivations for offering and applying energy efficiency measures in their current housing offer; second, external and internal factors that played an important role in the decision to implement energy efficiency measures;

third, the energy efficiency strategies and the experience gained in each case; and fourth, the barriers encounter during the implementation process, taken from experience gained.

The data collection and the interview analysis were undertaken consecutively; the data collection during the fieldwork in Santiago de Chile, Chile; and the interview analysis during deskwork in Dresden, Germany. Both stages were carefully reviewed before undertaking further analysis, in order to ensure that the thematic development was grounded in the original data. On the one hand, the primary objective for data collection was to capture the subjective viewpoint of the various stakeholders in form of verbal communications (from their different positions as key stakeholders of the private housing market, the regulators, and other areas of research related to the field). On the other hand, the primary objective of the interview analysis was to make sense of textual data which have been generated as interview transcripts, which are the material for the analysis (Booth 1993, p.204).

Initially, it was intended to carry out the interview analysis on the basis of field-notes and detailed-minutes written down during the interview appointments. However, very early during the fieldwork, the interviewer – the researcher – realized that this technique was distracting the interviewee’s attention. Therefore, two decisions were taken in this regard.

First, it was decided to take the least amount of hand notes during the interview, simply by noting some new questions arising at the very moment of the interview. And second, it was decided to work based on partial transcript of all the recordings of each interview. All relevant information was recovered from the interview, including the questions formulated by the interviewer, except for the personal stories or anecdotes that were not considered relevant for the purposes of the research.

Finally, it is important to note that the interviews, interview transcripts, and all the data analysis were conducted in Spanish, the researcher’s and the interview-partners’ native language. Later on, during the writing process of this doctoral thesis, the most relevant quotations were translated into English.

Steps for the Interview Analysis

The activities involved in the interview analysis are organized into series of consecutive steps based on Burnard (1991) and Burnard (1996). Below, a detailed description of each of the steps presented

Note Taking. Handwritten field-notes, regarding the most relevant topics discussed during the interview, are written down shortly after each interview appointments.

There are two objectives: first, to identify during the first interviews new insights on the topic in order to modify the interview guide if necessary; and second, to make some notes about the interview partners, i.e.: willingness to provide further information, willingness to participate in a second round of interviews.

Screening. During this step the intensive deskwork and analyze started. The aim of this step is to become immersed in the data as the first raw set of categories emerges from reading the transcripts. The first three to five print outs of the transcripts are read through and handwritten notes are made on general themes founded in the transcripts.

Open Coding. The goal is to let the categories emerge freely through the reading.

Transcripts are read through again and headings are written down as many as necessary to describe all content in the interview.

Axial Coding. The list of categories are reviewed and grouped together under higher-hierarchy headings. The goal is to reduce the number of thematic categories, clustering the information by themes and subthemes.

Building and Structuring. The new list of categories and sub-categories is worked through and all repeated or very similar headings are removed to produce the final thematic structure.

All the interview transcripts are worked trough with the final thematic structure. Pieces of the transcripts are coded and placed into a category with the support of MaxQDA, software for qualitative data analysis. One of the most significant benefits of working with this software is that it enables the use of code-and-retrieve technique. The aim of applying such technique is to acknowledge the context in which were said the interview text fragments. Thus, when coding-and-retrieving, the researcher can always go back from the coded sections to the transcripts, in order to avoid the risk of altering the meaning of what was said. Moreover, all the sections coded under the same category are retrieved together, this enables the researcher to make cross-case analysis by comparing interviewees and a contexts.

Finally, information is analyzed in two levels: first, at a thematic level, searching for communalities and/or divergences, and conflicting point of views among the interviewees;

and second, over the themes, generating insights between the themes, identifying relations, and building typologies and generalizations.

In summary, all the process involved the identification of all the topics discussed during the interview and reconstructed, through a careful reading and re-reading of the textual data. According to Fereday (2006) this is a form of pattern recognition within the data, where emerging themes become the categories for the analysis.