VARIABLES DE SEGMENTACIÓN

In this research, analysis was two-fold: I first attempted some thematic analysis before bringing ideas to the groups for co-operative analysis in the next session. I had initially tried to thematically analyse as Braun and Clarke (2006) had recommended but realised that there were issues with getting my co-researchers to participate in developing the analyses. Instead, I saw thematic analysis as a launch pad for co-operative analysis to occur in the action research.

5.3.1. Action Research as A Self-Analysing Method

Participation in Co-operative Inquiry is as important as participation in co-operative analysis of the enquiry itself. Co-researchers enquire about a topic through experiencing and understanding that experience, hence the analysis of experience is an important component of the enquiry process (Reason and Heron 1995; Heron 1996).

According to Heron (1996), co-researchers are fully immersed in the experience and engaged with the enquiry as co-subjects. Whilst in the process of understanding their experience, co- researchers look at their experiences with a fresh mind. This shared experience is understood deeper such that their initial understanding is expanded upon or rejected. The research group may be led away from their proposed ideas and decide to explore new areas or they may lose awareness of the development of the inquiry. It is this process of understanding experience and

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the developments of the enquiry that drives the development of experiential knowing (Reason and Heron 1995). The original propositions and questions are reconsidered in light of the new experience. In this consideration the co-researchers decide to change, further elaborate on them, rejected them and suggest new questions or areas of focus for the next cycle of action research. The groups may even decide to take a different form of action in the next cycle or different ways of gathering data, in response to their new experience of it and the new questions the inquiry serves to answer. Presentational knowing here bridges the action and evaluation phase (Reason and Heron 1995). Reason and Heron (1995) proposed that this analysis is the reflection aspect of the enquiry as it oscillates between action, as in the planning and action stages, and reflection, as in the evaluation and reflection stages.

Participation in actions and participation in reflections on these actions are of equal importance for an enquiry in the participatory paradigm (Heron and Reason 1997). In my research, I had to initiate the reflection on the actions before the co-researchers felt comfortable to contribute to it. Co-researchers then raised or reframed points that I had raised as topics of analysis from the action and these are then debated and developed in our discussions. I discuss co-operative analysis in more detail in the findings where describe dialogic reflection as an approach to enquiry. To initiate reflection, I had to first conduct thematic analysis to elicit some points raised in the previous sessions for the groups to reflect upon. Co-operative analysis in this action research was a key contributor to the trustworthiness and reflexivity of the findings. While it is a form of investigator triangulation where my co-researchers and I confirmed and challenged the analysis, it pushed all of us to be explicit with our reflections by doing so at the sessions. We all contributed to the reflexivity of this research by evaluating our position in relation to the topic and by discussing our feelings and thoughts about the analysis.

5.3.2. Initiating the Reflection Using Thematic Analysis

To initiate a reflection, one is required to first recount the experience as illustrated in many models of reflection (Gibbs 1988; Driscoll 1994). The action phases in the research meeting were

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often left to the last thirty minutes or and the next time we met was about a month later. Therefore, there was a need for me to provide a descriptive account of the ideas and action taken in the previous meeting. This required me to summarise and collate the ideas that have been discussed in the session before. This was done through the qualitative research analysis method – thematic analysis.

Action research is still developing and finding ground as a research method. While there have been many uses of action research published, there is a remarkable lack of information on how researchers had treated their data. How one goes about analysing data is not commonly dealt with even in the examples of action research that Heron and Reason (1997) had cited in their publication (Traylen 1994; Treleaven 1994; Whitmore 1994). This is perhaps since enquiry in action research is an iterative process of action and reflection. Hence in the reflection phase, research data is jointly analysed by the co-researchers. Action research, in other words, is a self- analysing method of research and there is little need for an additional step of analysis because reflection phase is part of the process.

My co-researchers who, despite having an interest in dialogic reflection, saw this research as additional to their course. I, on the other hand, saw this research as my PhD study. It was far more important to me than it was to my co-researchers who also had assignments and commitments to their course. Due to this, as the initiator of the research, I felt responsible for conducting an initial analysis of the transcript such that the ideas distilled from it became the discussion in the next session, thereby initiating the reflection phase of the research. Despite that, I was very mindful of using a method of analysis that was too constricting as the aim of this initial analysis was to provide a launch pad for co-operative analysis and not the sole definitive analysis of the action phases. Hence, I had turned to thematic analysis, the foundational method for qualitative analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006).

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Thematic analysis is a basic form of qualitative analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006). Thematising meanings are considered one of the generic skill that is required in all qualitative analysis (Holloway and Todres 2003). Thematic analysis is independent of epistemology and theory and hence is applicable to a wide range of qualitative analysis techniques (Braun and Clarke 2006). Due to this lack of epistemic grounding, it is arguable if this method of analysis can be considered as an approach to understanding qualitative data (Boyatzis 1998; Ryan and Bernard 2000) or if should be treated as a tool for other major analysis traditions (Braun and Clarke 2006). However, it was because of this flexibility and lack of an epistemic grounding that made thematic analysis suitable for this research.

There are many versions of thematic analysis (Attride-Stirling 2001; Joffe and Yardley 2004; Tuckett 2005; Braun and Clarke 2006). I had started with thematic analysis using the method as articulated by Braun and Clarke (2006) however I quickly ran into some difficulties with coding and over analysing the transcripts, compromising the co-operative nature of the research which also affected the trustworthiness and reflexivity.

I had coded the transcripts of the first sessions of both research groups, however, it generated a total of two hundred and sixty-four unique codes and some of these codes were questions rather than representations of the data. Whilst rereading my analysis, I was confused as some codes were too short to highlight the subtleties that were in the data and hence they were a poor representation of the data. As this analysis was meant to be read by my co-researchers, I was concerned whether they could follow my train of thoughts that led to the development of these ideas in my analysis. Additionally, I was concerned about having analysed the transcripts too much by tagging the data with representational codes such that they might appear to my co-researchers as a definitive analysis rather than a suggestion of an idea that might be worth some discussion. At this point, I felt that coding of the transcripts perhaps detrimental to the co- operative nature of this research. As there was little emergence of any pattern or trend since all

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the codes were unique on their own and I was having trouble keeping track of my own train of thoughts that led to the codes, I was concerned that my co-researchers would have difficulty understanding the analysis and that they may treat my analysis as definitive rather than suggestive. This was of the greatest concern as it may limit the degree of co-operation in research. I wanted the research to stay true to the participatory paradigm. An action research where the co-researchers jointly take part in the action but not in the reflection would alter the meaning of dialogic reflection that emerged as reflected in Glazer et al.’s (2004) research. Hence, I had decided not to code the transcripts using codes, instead, I had inserted my comments next to the respective quotes which were truer to my thought process. I had left most of these comments as questions so as so encourage co-researchers to think about them or respond to them in the next session.

After analysing both sets of transcripts for each session of both groups, I wrote a reflective summary of my analysis which was a combination of my reflections on the sessions and methodological considerations and a summary of ideas raised by both groups. This reflective summary then served as an aide-mémoire for the next session and presented to both groups as topics to reflect upon. I was mindful to be reflexive, hence I held back my own analysis and reflections when member-checking and only brought them to the session for further discussion with my co-researchers. An example of such analysis can be found in Chapter Eight.