Treatment of data

This research study approached data analysis in terms of creating “thick

description” (Geertz, 1973), generation of categories based on emerging patterns and refinement of these categories, and generating hypotheses.

To begin the process of my research inquiry, I reviewed the 12 DVD

documentation of the workshop several times, and cross-referenced with other types of data collected: journals, field notes, students’ writing assignment, and reflections from students. I wrote down notes outlined possible patterns of interactions among participants. To organize the data, in about three months I began to produce hundreds of pages of transcription out of the 12 DVDs. The transcription was not only about the verbal dialogue from and between teachers and participants, it also included a detailed, descriptive and narrative account of all non-verbal action in the process. In other words, the transcription became a holistic contextualization of the drama praxis.

Through the process of transcribing, I began to notice patterns of significance. Right after the second page of my transcription, I encountered a very strange and mystic experience. It felt very much like the data itself was passing on a voice to

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me by asking me these two questions: What is happening here? What does it

mean to the participants? I read about this mystic power before but I always thought that just some sentimental reflections of the researcher. But as it was happening to me, I had to admit that my understanding of the meaning of the data was very much compelled by the data itself - and it sounds like the data had a life of its own.

Indeed any data, as it is produced by humans through human interactions, has a life of its own. Coming back to the rational aspect of data analysis, I could only say that it was only when a researcher really ‘listens’ to the data can the

researcher discern the value in human experiences. This was exactly what I was experiencing in transcribing my data. In describing and narrating what happened in the process, I was reminded all the way by the two questions mentioned

above, and I wrote down my answers/responses to those two questions on the margins of related transcription. These margin notes were usually guided by these words: Why? How? Meaning?

The transcription I produced thus consisted of: verbal transcription, narrative description of actions, and possible explanation of the action. I then reviewed the transcription page by page, and generated further themes that could explain the patterns of interactions. During my next stage of data analysis, I tried to use the NVivo software to develop coding systems for my data. I spend almost two months on organizing the codes, and learning to use the software. I also

generated hundreds of pages of coded data with NVivo. As I finished this

coding task, I went back to read my original transcription, and my data reminded me again right there: if this study is about human beings, why did I use a

computerized approach to analyze my data? What was my data trying to inform me of their meaning making process?

I then decided to put aside my coded files, and engaged in the second layer of data analysis. I constructed another descriptive narrative of the lived experiences of the participants, and all the ‘moments’ of happening in this narrative became the representation of the significance that emerged through the interactions. At this stage, although the NVivo themes were not used or cited in my final analysis,

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they still served as the bedrocks that helped me to explore under the surface of the happenings. In other words, through layers and layers of exploration into the data, I was able to see the meanings co-constructed by all participants in the project. I began to understand what Richardson (2000) asserts as the process of crystallisation in research.

Upon completion of this descriptive narrative, I identified themes and develop a list of descriptors for each theme. Under each theme I then identified interrelated characteristics among each theme, as well as evidence from the data that

exemplified the characteristics. In this stage of analysis I identified four emerging themes, namely, building a space for embodied learning experience, developing multilayered interactions, boundary-crossing through metaxical engagement, and collaborative meaning making in reflective action. These four themes were then analyzed in terms of my research questions to see how these themes address my research questions.

In doing so, I moved into the fourth stage of my data analysis. In cross-examining the themes, the evidence, and my research questions, I realized that these themes did not stand independent of one another; instead, they emerged from one another and construct a web of significance. Reflecting on this, I realized that if I just explored each theme separately, the significance of the experience cannot be truthfully presented. Therefore, to present my discussion of data, I decided to construct a narrative which serves as a ‘thick description’ of the drama praxis with the four themes that I had identified. The form of narrative addresses the nature of a drama and would serve as a performative inquiry through my research. I will discuss the nature and application of this narrative of performative inquiry in the next session.

3.4.2. Analysis and interpretation: a performative inquiry

In essence, a theatre event as a social practice is a performance of culture and is multilayered in its presence. It calls for a web of relationship in its service, as discussed in Chapter 2. In accordance with the nature of a drama praxis, this study will apply the methodology of a performative inquiry to interpret the

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meaning which emerged from the data.

Performative inquiry follows the calls of many theatre practitioners and theorists who see theatre as a space for understanding, critique and social action. In

Chapter 2 of this study, I have discussed approaches of Austin, Searle, Burke, Goffman, and Schechner who share this line of inquiry in which human behavior is interpreted as a performance. Here in analyzing data, I will use L. Fels’ (1999; 2009; 2012) theory of performative inquiry as the framework to present my data. In Belliveau’s words, performative inquiry is

…a research methodology that uses the medium and processes of drama as a way of knowing (Fels, 1998). This qualitative approach investigates how performance (improvisation, tableaux, role drama, playbuilding) creates a co-evolving interaction between participants, their environment and the subject/theme within which moments of learning emerge (Fels, 2004). (Belliveau, 2006, p. 7)

Fels (2012) asserts that performative inquiry “offers practitioners and researchers a way of engaging in research that attends to critical moments that emerge

through creative action” (p.50). Fels proposes that, in the spirit of performative inquiry, an educational drama provides the following opportunities for

researchers:

1. a performative (third) space for action to take place; 2. a collective experience of reflection;

3. learning through performance;

4. knowledge developed through action and interaction; 5. investigation from a new perspective;

6. moments of questioning, uncertainty, dislocation, and risks.

In my analysis of the data in the following chapters, the drama workshop will be seen exactly as “a collective experience of reflection,” in which the participants were made able to problematise the current situation, to see things from different and distanced perspectives, and develop understanding in every moment of

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encountering with others, while co-constructing meanings together through dialogue and critical reflections. To truthfully present this collective experience in action and reflection, and “because of the complexity of the interactions, the whole creative sequence needs to be studied” (O’Toole, 2006, p. 46). Therefore, a descriptive narrative of drama praxis in the spirit of “thick description” is used to explore the meaning making process in the first part of the analysis, i.e., Chapter 4. The exploration of the deeper meanings co-constructed in this experience will be presented in Chapter 5.

3.5 Accountability and limitation of the research methodology