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The sixteen interview transcripts as a whole formed the data for analysis. There is some debate about whether the whole transcripts should be used or whether

significant phrases should be isolated and contribute to a ‘pool of meanings’ (Bowden & Walsh 2000). I believe that the transcripts should remain whole, as the

interpretation of key phrases is important in the analytical stage. Meanings are not fixed and clear, they rely on the textual context for interpretation and for purposes of analysis one needs to return to the transcripts again and again checking the meaning and interpretation against the emerging structure of the phenomenon (Åkerlind 2005). I therefore maintained the transcripts and their key phrases so that could be dipped into repeatedly for verification and clarification (Marton & Booth 1997: 133). This

constant iterative process engaging all the transcripts looked for the key qualitative variations within the accounts that related to the way in which the tutors experienced the relationship between their practice and teaching their practice.

After an initial reading of all transcripts I constructed what appeared to me to be six different themes or differences in the way that this was experienced. These initial categories took their key titles from words or phrases used in the transcript. What is critical in phenomenography is that the categories should be construed from the data, although constructed by the researcher (see Walsh 2000a). The researcher does not set out with a tentative framework or a theoretically derived set of categories. This construction of categories is performed with what is described as a need to ‘bracket out’ one’s experience when starting the analysis. The true extent to which this can be done is debatable (Ashworth & Lucas 2000) as this methodology, like other

qualitative approaches, is subject to the interpretation of the researcher and this interpretation must be influenced by previous experiences. The way in which most phenomenographers avoid the potential bias in interpretation is to work as a team at the analytical stage, discussing the construction of categories, challenging, debating and going back to the data to check that the analysis can be supported by the evidence in the data (e.g. Walsh 2000b, Bowden & Green 2005).

As I worked independently on this research I did not have the benefit of team

discussion and therefore I had to be very critical and rigorous in returning to the data each time I thought I had determined a category or structure (Åkerlind et al. 2005). This is similar to the idea of distance, removing oneself from the intimacy of the transcripts and testing the ideas by questioning the construction, returning to the data for another reading, looking for any instances that would counter the current

construction, as in negative case studies (Robson 2002: 490), and trying to look at the data as if you were reading it for the first time. Each re-reading can produce a

new interpretation or a new understanding of some of the data. The idea of a

reflexive research practice (Alvesson & Sköldberg 2000) was one that I tried to adopt, not being satisfied with my emerging categories until I felt that I had adopted a critical distance and challenged my constructions. This process was repeated until I had achieved a logical framework that I could no longer disturb by returning to the data to look for evidence that would negate it. A final discussion with a critical friend enabled clarification and naming of the last structural formulation in the iterative process, so although no team was involved another person helped in the verification of the final structure (Bowden & Green 2005).

This iterative approach was a long process of challenging myself and at the same time feeling as if the underlying skeleton of the overall experience was emerging as a supporting structure integrated with the meaning of the research (Marton & Booth 1997: 133). From the first tentative construction of six categories I returned to the data and these became reduced to four, three of the original ones being incorporated into one category labelled balancing. The other three categories remained fairly stable throughout the analysis, although the detail and their relationships to other categories continued to be crystallised out and firmed up. The process was similar to a constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss 1967, Silverman 2001: 238), or in phenomenographic terms moving between figure and ground repeatedly in the interpretation of the data (Marton & Booth 1997). I later split the categories into five, identifying that there were differences within the balancing category that I had not fully accounted for. I worked with post it notes attached to transcripts to identify where there were contradictions to the first set of categories and then compared what was different and what was similar in and between the categories. Through quick

sketching of ideas (Tesch 1990, Miles & Huberman 1994) and tables of relationships between emerging categories I diagrammatically explored the emerging differences and relationships between the ways of experiencing teaching and practice. This also

pointed to difficulties in reconciling the structure and showed where I still had work to do in sorting out the underlying components. Writing up the description between the categories also helped to clarify the differences between them, again pointing up issues that were not distinctly different and therefore had to be clarified or redefined by referring back to specific examples in the data. There were several further

iterations of the categories until I felt sure that there were distinct differences between them.

During the process of sorting and checking, of making provisional structures of variation, an idea emerged in my research journal where I said: ‘these sound like strategies’. I looked back into the transcripts and identified a number of ways that tutors described teaching their practice, what they actually did with their students. When I analysed these it seemed that they were associated with particular ways of experiencing being a practitioner tutor. Unpicking these strategies also helped to clarify and confirm the construction of the outcome space and made a more robust picture of the experience. By undergoing this process I had reached an awareness and understanding of the data that I would not otherwise have achieved.