According to Langdridge (2007) theory in an IPA study should be situated in and emerge from the data so that the findings of the study represent the meanings that learners assign to their experience rather than those applied to their experience by others. This necessitates an inductive approach to analysis. The data I obtained during the interviews was therefore used to generate theoretical ideas about the learners’ experience rather than being used to test any pre-existent theories about how students learn via entertainment-education in the online environment.
My role as the researcher therefore was to interpret how the participant made sense of their learning experience and also to be aware of how I was interpreting their experience. Smith and Osborn (2003) refer to this as the double-hermeneutic and cite it as a benefit of IPA because it facilitates analysis of the role of the researcher in interaction with the participant and the text. I kept a reflective diary during the analytical process to try to illuminate what impact I was having on the inductive process and to provide a record of what was informing my thinking.
Through induction IPA seeks to reflect unique and shared perspectives of the participants. Flowers et al (2005, p. 20) state that in IPA:
Analyses usually maintain some level of focus on what is distinct (i.e. idiographic study of persons), but will also attempt to balance this against an account of what is shared (i.e. commonalities across a group of participants).
As my study is concerned with making sense of the participant’s world from idiographic and shared perspectives, a detailed analysis of the data is required (Mayes 2006). I therefore recorded the interviews digitally using an Olympus© dictaphone and had them transcribed. The transcribed documents were typed using Microsoft Word©, anonymised, line numbered and time stamped at each change of speaker. In order to familiarise myself with the transcripts, I listened to the audio- recordings and read through the transcripts of interviews prior to and during analysis as
recommended by Langdridge (2007). I then followed the seven-step analytical process for IPA recommended by Smith and Osborn (2003) (Appendix 2).
79 As Smith and Osborn (2003) recommend that analysis commences with one case. I began by
subjecting a single case to the seven-stage analytical process by reading and re-reading one transcript to identify themes inductively in one case before moving on to subsequent cases. This approach seemed strange at first and it was hard to resist the urge to code by apriori (Miles and Huberman 1994) based on the questions from the topic guide in order to feel in control of the data. I quickly realized however that applying aprioric coding would be mechanistic, an imposition of myself on the data and so risk illusion of subject errors (Ricoeur 1981). So although I could see how aprioric coding might help to organize the data, thinking about the data in this way did not illuminate my thinking about its meaning. I therefore stayed with the IPA process recommended by Smith and Osborn (2003) and continued analysing the data via this inductive approach for all nine interviews. I think maintaining this inductive approach to analysis ensured that it progressed gradually from the idiographic to the common and helped me to focus on the meaning of the data I was analysing rather than focussing on the frequency of themes.
I found re-reading the transcripts invaluable as initially I would see different things in them each time I read them. The free textual analysis process enabled me to note my preliminary
interpretations in the right hand margin and then later transform these notes into themes in the opposite margin on re-reading. I found the free textual analysis process helpful. It facilitated my thinking about the text and enabled me to consider what was being said and what was meant, rather than getting unduly concerned about the organization of the data. The personal lesson I learned from this was to take time to really think about themes rather than worry about getting a transcript analysed. Through this process I was able to move away from a task-orientated approach and engage more meaningfully with the analysis. In addition I found using both margins for specific aspects of the analysis helpful. The right-hand margin (for free textual analysis) served as a filter for the thematic analysis in the other margin. Having already acknowledged what was being said, I could filter out extraneous annotations by focusing on the meaning and then theme what seemed to be
80 most significant to the learner experience. This enabled me to transform my annotations into
tentative themes for the case.
One of the challenges I found when analysing data was trying to interpret the significance and illustrate the meaning of what was not said. Gadamer (1975/1989) suggests what we do not say is as important as what we say, so how I addressed this as a researcher was important. I first became aware of this issue with the third interview. It contrasted with the two previous interviews based on what this participant did not say. She did not express empathy for virtual patients or practitioners whereas the previous participants did. She did not talk about discussions with other students and how they influenced her learning, yet this had also been a key feature of the previous interviews. There was a complete absence of this type of discussion from her interview. It seemed to me that this absence itself was significant. I felt I wanted to theme for this lack but was unsure how to do so. I was also mindful that by attempting to theme the absence of something, my interpretation was coming to the fore and I wished to avoid Illusion of subject errors (Ricoeur 1981) in trying to integrate absence into my data set.
According to Gadamer (1975/1989) it is the listener’s/reader’s role in a given situation to attach meaning to what is not said and as human beings we do it all the time. For example if I read an article and it did not cover what I expected, I may assume that there is something the author did not wish to disclose and consequently might view their work less sympathetically. This meaning would have been imbued by me based on nothing – on what is not there. The implication of Gadamer’s (1975/1989) position is that imbuing meaning on what is not said is part of the researcher’s role as it is part of the way they interact with the participant and the text. I therefore noted my thoughts about the lack of empathy with characters and lack of interaction with others that I picked up in the third interview in my reflective diary and linked it to my dataset. An initial theme of lone-learning emerged from this process.
Having identified themes from a case I then began to organize them into conceptualizations as per steps two and three of Smith and Osborn’s (2003) IPA process. I did this by making a theme list and
81 theme directory using Microsoft OneNote© which contained my tentative definitions of each theme based on the analysis of the transcript (Figure 4 and Figure 5). Data extracts from the transcripts were collected with Microsoft OneNote and placed in the theme directory under the appropriate theme heading. HTML links connected the extract back to the original transcript. I selected Microsoft OneNote© to help me manage the data in line with the IPA process. I found I could easily theme and re-order themes as my interpretations developed. I did explore using NVivo© prior to commencing my analysis but found it to have a hierarchical structure more suited to aprioric coding and less appropriate for my approach to analysis and so I rejected it and selected Microsoft OneNote© in preference.
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Figure 5 Screenshot showing excerpt of theme directory for all cases
I then moved onto step four of the analysis as per Smith and Osborn’s (2003) IPA process, clustering themes and constructed a theme-map for each case using Inspiration Software to help me make connections between themes (see Appendices 17,18 and 19 for examples). Theme maps were linked to the OneNote© data set using HTML links. Making theme maps facilitated the development of superordinate themes. So for example interactive social learning and parasocial learning were superordinate themes to emerge from Interview 1. However, as Case 1 theme map shows (Appendix 17) parasocial learning and its outcomes are repeated on the map demonstrating that the
boundaries of this theme are unclear at this time.
The theme maps developed as my analysis progressed in response to the themes I perceived as emerging from the different interviews. Appendix 18 provides an example of a theme map showing the changes that had occurred after idiographic analysis of the first five cases. By comparison Appendix 19 shows the final map after the individual analysis of all cases and cross case analysis to reflect common themes. I found using theme maps helpful in managing the analytical process as they enabled me to visualize the whole dataset and how it evolved. I also wrote commentaries regarding the construction of theme maps in my reflective diary to help me keep track of my thought processes. I created HTML links between the maps, the commentaries and the data set
83 using the HTML links to maintain the coherence of my interpretations. This helped me to ensure the transparency of my analysis as it enabled me to illustrate my thinking to my personal supervisor. Once I had constructed a theme map, I developed a theme table for each case. Appendix 20 shows the theme table for Case 1 and Appendix 21 for Case 5. Theme tables allowed me to see the themes and superordinate themes, and record the location of data extracts by line number. In addition to developing a theme map for each case, I kept a master theme table so I could gain a sense of how themes were emerging across cases. Appendix 22 shows the master theme table after Case 5. This helped me to make decisions about theme boundaries by reflecting on their implications (Appendix 23). Completion of the analysis of each case led to a written narrative summary to capture the uniqueness of the participant’s experience before moving on to analysing the subsequent Case. I analysed all nine cases individually using these four steps before moving onto cross-case analysis. Although I made some comparisons of themes across cases and identified superordinate themes as my sense of the connections developed, my final decisions about superordinate themes were not made until I had completed the cross-case analysis. This enabled me to go back across all cases and revisit transcripts to check for the presence of themes that had emerged later in the analysis in the early cases and to clarify the connections and boundaries between themes. The outcome of this can be seen in changes to the master theme table to reflect common superordinate themes. Appendix 24 shows the master theme table on completion of the idiographic analysis. Appendix 25 shows the master theme table on completion of the cross case analysis.
The final analytical step was the creation of narrative accounts of meaning, reflecting the iterative nature of the relationship between the researcher, the transcripts and the data construction. Smith and Osborn (2003) advise that analysis is often expanded in the write up phase as themes are explained and illustrated. I found this to be the case. Write up enabled me to gain greater clarity in relation to the concepts I had identified in my data as I endeavoured to explain them for the reader and I re-labelled two themes as a consequence. Virtual vulnerability became the virtual window and interactive social learning became social support for learning. These themes are presented along
84 with my other findings in Chapter 4 and I discuss issues regarding their presentation in that chapter. For now I wish to move on to discussing issues pertaining to the integrity of my work.