PROCESS OF DATA ANALYSIS

Data analysis involves „breaking up‟ the data into manageable themes, patterns, trends and relationships (Mouton, 2001:108). According to Mouton, the aim of data analysis is to understand the various constitutive elements of one‟s data through an inspection of the relationships between concepts, constructs or variables in order to see whether any patterns or trends can be identified or isolated and to establish the themes in the data. Qualitative research entails studying experiences and the meaning attached to specific experiences. These experiences can be represented in multiple ways.

This section reflects on the methods of analysis that were employed. These methods will be described according to the phases of data collection, as discussed above.

3.3.5.1 DATA ANALYSIS: FAMILY INTERVIEWS

The narrative analysis method was utilised for the family interviews, and individual interviews for the youth-headed families.

3.3.5.2 NARRATIVE ANALYSIS

Narrative analysis refers to a family of methods for interpreting texts that have a storied form in common. Analysis of data is only one component of the broader field of narrative inquiry, which is a way of conducting case-centred research (Riessman, 2008:11). Vincent (2012) indicates that a researcher can choose to focus on:

 What is told (content)

 How it is told (form or structure)

 Who tells it (intentionality)

 Who it is told to; when it is told; where it is told (context)

In narrative analysis, the researcher can employ either thematic analysis or structural analysis. Thematic analysis focuses on what is said or told, namely the content,

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rather than how, to whom or for what purpose (Riessman, 2008). The researcher develops the themes, which may come from the purpose of the study, the theoretical framework of the study, or from the data itself. In seeking to analyse data, thematic analysis can either identify themes pertaining to a particular question (in this case, a deductive analysis is followed) or it can identify themes that are observed across the entire data range (inductive analysis).

Structural analysis, on the other hand, focuses on the „telling‟ rather than the „told‟. The researcher using this method is interested in how narratives are organised to achieve the narrator‟s strategic aims. This method involves the detailed analysis of forms of speech. The researcher‟s interest moves from the told to the telling. There is a realisation that there are many ways of relating „what happened‟. Therefore, there is an interest in the form of representation that is being employed.

In this study, thematic analysis was used. I began the process by preparing the data for analysis. This involved the process of transcribing all the interviews.

The family interviews were analysed according to the two broad phases, namely the descriptive phase and the interpretive phase, as suggested by Smith (2008:120). I started the process by reading the narrative accounts of children and young people in youth-headed families. This process preceded both phases, as it allowed for the identification of key themes and sub-sub-themes within the broader narrative. Once the themes had been identified, a coding frame was developed and applied to the narratives in order to capture their overall meaning, or the story-line(s) running through all stories (Smith, 2008:120).

My observations from some of the texts were that some stories followed a sequence representing a particular journey and the turning points in that journey. This then enabled me to analyse the informants‟ stories, „restorying‟ them into a chronological presentation. This involved shaping the stories into a chronology about life before parental death, life after parental death, their experiences of reconstituting the family, their experiences of life without parents, and finally, the interpretation of the process of coping and resilience. Cortazzi (1993) suggests that this chronology of narrative

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research, with an emphasis on sequence, sets narrative apart from other genres of research. Restorying is the process of gathering stories, analysing them for key elements (such as time, place, plot, and scene), and then rewriting them to place them within a chronological sequence (Ollerenshaw & Creswell, 2000).

I also observed certain thematic assumptions that were of particular interest to the study and developed additional questions that would elicit further information on these assumptions. These questions were used during the additional contacts with some of the families. During this process, the participants expanded on their stories and the process of analysis continued. The next step involved the identification of themes that were common across the narratives, and which themes were then defined and described. The second step of narrative analysis was to connect the narratives with the broader theoretical literature in order to interpret the story. According to Smith (2008:120), it is during this phase that narrative accounts can be identified as illustrating the relevant theoretical literature.

The transcripts of the recorded interviews were sent to an independent coder, together with a set of the interview questions and the goals and objectives of the study in order to guide the process of theme identification. A consensus discussion was held with the independent coder once the researcher and the independent coder had independently completed the process of data analysis in order to identify final themes. The purpose of this discussion was to exclude any biases on the part of the researcher and to ensure the trustworthiness or validity of the findings.

3.3.5.3 DATA ANALYSIS: INTERVIEWS WITH SERVICE PROVIDERS AND COMMUNITY MEMBERS

The steps reflected in Tesch‟s method of data analysis (1990), as discussed in Creswell (2003), were employed. These steps entailed the following:

 All the transcripts were carefully read and short notes were made in order to get a sense of the complete data set for this group of participants.

72  One transcript was chosen and read carefully in order to make meaning of its contents. Notes on initial ideas were written in the margin; and thoughts regarding themes that emerged were written down.

 The previous step was repeated with the remaining transcripts, which were examined in a similar fashion. The topics that emerged, were listed, and similar topics were clustered together. Topics were divided into themes, sub- themes and categories.

 The list was taken back to the data, and topics were abbreviated as codes. Some new categories and codes emerged. The revised list was used to do coding.

 The researcher found the most descriptive wording for the topics and turned them into categories. Groups were made to reduce the total number of categories.

 A final decision was made on the abbreviation for each category and the categories were then arranged alphabetically.

 The data were grouped under different categories, and preliminary analysis was conducted.