Propuestas de diseño

Though it is uncommon to use literature as sources of data, Birks and Mills (2013:79) argue literature could be used as data in grounded theory. Citing Glaser, a renowned scholar in sociology and one of the scholars who contributed to the development of grounded theory, these scholars further noted that published literature and existing theory “… are data and should be treated the same as data from any other sources…” (Birks & Mills 2013:80). Accordingly, a literature review was used to show current international trends of the provision of correctional education and to trace how prison education evolved in Ethiopia. Hence, two research questions: what is the international trend in the provisioning of prison education and how did prison education evolve in Ethiopia were addressed through literature review (see chapter two and chapter three). In order to understand the international practice of prison education, among others, books, journals and some international documents on the rights of people in general and that of inmates, in particular, such as United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for Treatment of Prisoners, Universal Declarations of Human Right were used as sources of information. Moreover, official documents, national correctional institution reports, the Ethiopian Constitution and other related local research outputs were used to show the history of prison education in Ethiopia. However, the available local sources with regard to the history of prison education are scanty and were a serious challenge to the researcher to clearly trace prison education evolution in Ethiopia.

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On the basis of the findings of the literature review, the researcher understood that, though the time of the beginning of education in prisons at both international and Ethiopian context is not known exactly, the international literature shows some form of education was there at the beginning of prison system. Moreover, from a review of literature showing an international trend of prison education, the scope evolved over time though there were fluctuations of attention given to the area during different times. In Ethiopian context, on the other hand, the limited literature found portray that prison education is a recent phenomenon in the country and show that it has begun with a legal backup in the 2nd half of the twentieth century as a result of the issuance of criminal law in 1957.

4.5.3. Data analysis techniques

Data analysis is the stage where researcher/s makes sense out of the collected data through different methods. As Hatch (2002:148) noted, “data analysis is a systematic search for meaning.” With regard to the timing of analysis, qualitative research scholars argue that it is better to start data analysis soon along with data collection (Birks & Mills 2013:94; Creswell 2007:150; Hatch 2002:149; Sarantakos 2005:346). For instance, Creswell (2007:150) contend, “…data collection, data analysis and report writing are not distinct steps; they are interrelated and often go simultaneously.” Similarly, Sarantakos (2005:344) said that although there are cases when the data analysis wholly takes place after data collection, it is advisable and usual that data collection and analysis in qualitative research go alongside. In explaining the reason behind the need to start analysis early, Hatch (2002:149) said, “starting early allows researchers to shape the direction of future data collection based on what they are actually finding or not finding” and if they are not on the right track of addressing the problem under investigation, they can change their focus without going so far.

Patton (2002:432), believes, “qualitative analysis transforms data into findings”, however, this scholar asserts that there is no one “formula” for this “transformation” as different researchers do it differently. But it doesn't mean that there is any way of analysing qualitative data. Creswell (2007:148) argues all qualitative researchers pass

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through three processes to analyse collected data: organising and making the data ready for analysis, identifying themes through coding, and presenting data in a way the approach they chose allow. Though all approaches of qualitative research may pass through these processes, the particularities and emphasis may vary among the approaches of qualitative research. For instance, unlike to other designs, grounded theory requires an iterative way of approaching data and simultaneous data collection and analysis (Birks & Mills 2013:94). Hence, an emerging design where data is collected and analysed instantly was employed (Creswell 2012:433). This portrays that the data collection is not a one-shot activity and entails the researcher to closely follow and frequently visit the research setting. According to Creswell (2012:433), this type of data collection and analysis is termed as “zigzag”. The analysis in this research followed this type of procedure as depicted in the figure below.

Figure 1: Zigzag data collection and analysis to achieve saturation of categories

Source: Creswell 2012:433

As can be seen from the figure above, the researcher started with an initial collection of interview data and simultaneously engaged herself in analysing the data. Hence, while collecting data, the researcher has also engaged in organising and coding to categories. Data collected were organised based on type and sources. For instance, the data obtained through one-to-one interview and FGD were organised separately with the data sources (one-to-one interview with teacher B1, inmate B1 (for one-to-one interview

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with different participants in Bahir Dar), a one-to-one interview with Teacher D1 (D stands for Dangila), etc). At the initial step, the researcher was coding data initially obtained using different colours for different ideas and writing memos. During this, crude concepts started to emerge that provided hints for the researcher to the type of categories that finally emerge from the data (Charmaz 2006:3). Though the preliminary concept identification is commenced using the initial interviews, the concepts were further strengthened, based on Charmaz‟s (2006:3) suggestions, to become categories using data obtained through other means after second data collection. During this activity, “the inquirer refines, develops, and clarifies the meanings of categories for the theory” with a “back and forth” process until further new categories cease to emerge which is commonly called saturation (Creswell 2012:433). Hence, the researcher had to visit the research setting several times during data collection to find out for more information that can help to condense identified categories or develop new ones. During such a process of developing categories, the researcher was engaged herself in a “constant comparative data analysis” using the data collected through interviews and observations, and those obtained from field notes and insights from memos. This analysis involves “comparing incidents in the data to other incidents, incidents to categories, and categories to other categories” that ultimately helps draw the categories from the data (Charmaz 2006:3; Creswell 2012:434). Finally, the researcher identified categories and presented them as topic and subtopic (based on their breadth) in the finding and discussion chapter, chapter 5.