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The tapes were transcribed into a block of typescript as soon as was practicable after each interview. In most cases the interviewees reported formal qualifications first. Qualifications were mostly reported chronologically from the past to the present. After that a reporting of their professional development generated by either the workplace or by other interests took place. Laughter or failure to answer the question were noted. My comments and questions were transcribed in italics. Punctuation was not always included, as long as the meaning of the utterance was clear. Brief notes of the content of sections of interviews that interviewees had requested not to be

transcribed, or that I considered to be irrelevant were noted in upper case letters (for example, holiday plans and family events unrelated to professional development or future plans which the interviewee considered to be confidential) (Appendix 3, nos. 32, 34, 26).

The transcripts were returned to the interviewees by email for their comments and acceptance as an accurate record of the interview. Copies of their acceptances are on file. Whilst re-listening to the tapes of the interviews, I then divided the block of transcript into manageable sections, according to the speech patterns of the interviewees, adding numbers as identifiers. The divisions were usually at the

beginning of a new thought or at a pause, and could occur in the middle of a sentence (Appendix 2, nos.4-6, 7 and 8, 9 and 10).

Concurrent with this process of interviews and transcription, open coding as in the Grounded Theory (Glaser, 1978; 1992; Glaser and Strauss, 1965) method of data analysis was begun. The grounded theory method as a method of analysis was used because the method sets out to find the theory implicit in the data; that is, an

explanation of what is contained within the data. ‘It is a theory because it explains or predicts something’ (Glaser and Strauss, 1967:31). This explanation will be used to answer the research question. The distinction is made here between the telling of each

person’s individual story and the interpretation of these same stories in terms of collective experiences and social processes. Interpretation requires identifying similarities in the patterns of the professional development paths taken by the

educators studied and of the factors that explain these patterns; that is, ‘fracturing the data’ (Glaser, 2004:17) and then reforming it. I was aware throughout this process of the danger of reading into the analysis concepts that were not there but that was information that had originated from my previous knowledge of the members of the cohort. Coding of each utterance, with letter symbols identifying each code as it was revealed, overcame this danger. If it wasn’t there, it wasn’t coded.

Concepts in the form of codes and, after several interviews, categories and their properties were identified during the Grounded Theory method of analysis. Glaser (1992:39) explained that coding conceptualises ‘data by a constant comparison of incident with the incident, and incident with concept to emerge more categories and their properties’. Miles and Huberman (1984) described codes as retrieval and organising devices that allow the analyst to spot quickly, pull out then cluster all the segments relating to the particular questions or theme (Miles and Huberman,

1984:56).

Codes can be descriptive, interpretive or explanatory with themes, patterns or a leit motif that may be a recurring phrase, expression or utterance. Glaser (1992) used the terms concept, category and property for these similarities where:

concepts are the underlying meaning , uniformity and/or pattern within a set of descriptive incidents;

categories are a type of concept usually used for a higher level of abstraction; and

properties are a type of concept that is a conceptual characteristic of a category, thus at a lesser level of abstraction than a category. A property is a concept of a concept (Glaser 1992:39).

I read and re-read each utterance with the intention of understanding what was meant. However, I heeded Glaser’s warning that ‘the analyst starts with no preconceived codes–he remains entirely open’ (Glaser,1992:39). I also attempted to remain ‘attuned to our subjects’ views of their shared realities, rather than assume that we

share the same views and the same worlds’ (Charmaz, 2000:515). Therefore, as the open coding process proceeded I examined each utterance and described the actions and concepts I interpreted occurring within it. This method of coding kept me thinking about and questioning what was meant by each utterance and recognising any gaps that appeared. I was able to focus on these gaps in the following interviews. When I established an interpretation of a concept within an utterance it was described and given a symbol (Appendix 6) and noted and commented upon in the journal. The transcript margin was annotated with a set of letters (Appendix 6). For example LLR represented a Life Long Learner, or XMPD was the symbol for mandatory

professional development that was considered to be unhelpful.

Codes related to the motivation for the professional development of the members of the cohort began to emerge at the first interview. By the completion of the second interview similarities within the reported professional development experiences of the two interviewees, who had received their educational qualifications to post graduate level in different cultures on different countries, were apparent. Glaser and Strauss (1967) warned of not beginning to generate categories until the first few days in the field are over. This is a precaution against causing data to be forced as well as neglecting further relevant concepts that may emerge. I heeded this advice and bean the open coding process as from the first day in the field but deliberately did not begin to formulate categories and their properties until several interviews had been

completed and coded.

The order that the codes were notated was determined by the order that they first emerged during the coding of the transcripts. My journal shows that by the completion of the coding of the first two interviews I had identified the following codes from the data: the influence of government policies on professional

development (GOVPOL); the influence of the family on career and initial professional development choices (FAM); an academic/career redirection due to failing to meet requirements of an educational institution (CHDR); the member of the cohort has aspirations to lecture (ASPL); and that professional development linked to current work was considered to be the most useful professional development (LINK).

Further codes were added as the interviews progressed including: attitudes to this university (XVU); social isolation (SOCIS); disciplined childhood (DC); life long learners (LLR); love of learning(LLG); and the attitude of the members of the cohort to coursework (RECW). New codes kept emerging right to the last interview. For example: the interviewee had undertaken or intended to undertaken a law degree at the completion of the doctorate (LAW). Codes and their descriptions were returned to the members of the cohort to ensure their relevance to the concepts identified. The responses are on file.

As I became more theoretically sensitive (Glaser, 1978) that is, experienced at interpreting meaning and at identifying, coding, categorising and describing the

incidents and relationships emerging from the data, more and more codes were added. Categories were formed by the combination of codes. Useful categories arise from focusing on the codes that occur frequently; that is selective coding (Glaser and Strauss, 1978; Charmaz, 2000) to what is core. Categorising subsumes several codes in each combination, however some codes were used repeatedly in multiple

combinations. For example, the category of lifelong learning subsumes the codes of

lifelong learners, loves to read and does additional PD for interest into one category. Properties were also added at this stage, an example of which is the properties

assigned to the category of lifelong learning such as dedication discipline and risk taking. A total of 55 codes were notated during the coding period. Many more were discarded as false leads or being extraneous to the study. For example several members of the cohort mentioned they saw the only benefit they may receive from gaining a doctorate was being upgraded by airlines. I considered this reason to be frivolous and thus deleted the code.

After several interviews I noted that the development and maintenance of the self through professional development activities was frequently mentioned and I identified it as the core category.

Before I had completed the interviews the stage was reached where the analysis of the data was not contributing any new information about particular categories, their properties and the relationship to the core category. Glaser termed this stage of the analysis ‘theoretical saturation’ (Glaser and Strauss, 1967:61). I ceased that particular

coding but smiled inwardly at its confirming appearance in subsequent interviews. Two examples are a disciplined childhood (DCH) and being a clever child (CLCH). Before the study began several faculty members of the university expressed an interest in it and stated that they would be interested in the findings to contribute toward a review of the program. Because of this interest, one variation to the

Grounded Theory method which I employed was to recode all of the transcripts for all of the categories that I kept. This step provided counts which are an extremely

efficient means of conveying information to time-starved professionals. Glaser (1978) acknowledged in a positive tone that researchers may and do adapt his Grounded Theory method of analysis to suit their needs. ‘Many people in other fields—education, public health, social welfare, political science to cite a few—have used adaptations of grounded theory quite successfully (Glaser, 1978:3).

The codes were then entered into a matrix (Miles and Huberman, 1984), in which the interviewee’s names were juxtaposed against them. The matrix provided a useful tool both for counts of numbers and for ease of comparisons of concepts, categories and properties. It was an easily accomplished task within the time frame allowed because I was working with a small subject group of seventeen students, which included my own response to each of the codes.

The information generated by this study has been utilised by the university when the research, to this point in time, was reported to the university when I was invited to be the student representative at a Doctor of Education review Panel meeting (Appendix 7).

The second phase of the analysis ‘sets the stage for deeper analysis’ (Miles and Huberman, 1984:56), which Glaser terms theoretical coding (Glaser, 1992) defining them as ‘the conceptual relationship between the categories and their properties as they emerge’ (Glaser, 1992:39). Thus relationships were established between the similarities now termed events. I clustered the groups of codes, that is the symbols representing the concepts and their categories and properties identified from the first phase in various combinations. The combinations were arrived at using both

inductive and deductive reasoning, or ‘conceptual connectors to be used implicitly and explicitly in the way and style in which the analyst writes’ Glaser (1992:39). These similarities are named as events or themes which can be seen to occur in multiple stories, and when the conditions and activities are related to them they are termed factors which can lead to the development of a substantive theory. For example: the influence of the family, the development of identity and sense of self, and professional development for interest and for completion.

The entire process Glaser (1992) terms constant comparative coding, that is the coding of ‘incidents for categories and their properties and the theoretical codes that connect them’ (Glaser, 1992:39). The constant comparative methods of grounded theory compares the views and experiences of different people, compares the data from these same people with themselves at different points in time, compares incident with incident and category with category, and compares categories with other

categories. (Charmaz, 2000; Glaser, 1978, 1992, 2004). The constant comparative process also includes the literature read during the analysis phase. The literature is compared to the emerging theory in the same way the new data is compared to the emerging theory, that is the researcher ‘integrates the relevant literature into the theory’ (Glaser, 2004:17).