Analysis process:
I initially thought that I was going to try to secure 6+ interviews with staff members in which case I felt comfortable and confident with using thematic analysis and coding to look at my findings and begin to draw out key categories. However, when I spoke to Tim Stephens in the final tutorial in December I updated him with the number of expected staff interviews and he suggested that I read into hermeneutics as thematic analysis is more suited to higher number of interviewees. I found out that hermeneutics is the study of interpretation and I began to explore hermeneutics as a research approach. I felt that the purpose of hermeneutics which is human understanding of what people say and do and why seemed like a good fit for my research and I would try to explore this research method along side the initial colour coding analysis that I wanted to use.
I began by first checking my transcripts to ensure that Microsoft Teams had corrected picked up both my words and the words of my participants by re-listening to the interviews and reading the transcript as I went along. I was able to make any required edits reasonably swiftly. Then I set about breaking down what was contained in the transcripts into key topics. This was the first stage of my colour code analysis that would help me gather information from all of the participants for analysis. Once I had gathered this I added the key elements and summaries to post-it notes on a Miro board shown in Figure 1.
Once I had done the sorting of this raw data I began to look at how I could code this data into more summarises rather than the pretty lengthy quotes that I had begun with. In previous research I have always relied on Saldana (2021) to support with the coding process and on reflection I think that I went slightly ‘off piste’ with my approach this time by sorting by topic prior to beginning any coding. I didn’t feel that I have approach this piece of research with my usual rigour but I still feel that I have been able to draw out some great findings. I’m not sure why I lost my usual rigour but it may be due to the short time I had to develop this project and managing many other projects at the same time from my different roles at UAL. However, I believe that it’s useful I am able to reflect on this as it demonstrates that I am aware of what has happened during this piece of research and what I would change for the future to make positive improvements.
My second stage involved sorting through lots of the data that I had collated the simplfying it through codes in order to make it easier to see themes arising from the different interviews. The post-it notes on the left hand side are the sub-codes or potentially future categories as I begin to work through all of the data. I also showed key links between the different sub-codes using arrows as demonstrated below. An example of this is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: An analysis of the codes related to the topic of ‘value’ the green colour of the post-its shown here aligns with the green highlighted sections on the transcripts.
After I had completed this initial coding I was able to look at all of the different codes that I had compiled through different topics and bring them together to sort into an order which I felt made sense with what I had begun to gather, as shown in Figure 3. As I worked through this I was really pleased with how the different topics were coming together to provide nice summaries and conclusions from the key data. I also kept track of any key quotes that I might want to present as part of my findings directly as this was an important way of demonstrating the impact of this project.
Once I had done this sorting I began to try to visualise my data in a different way and create some code trees that helped me to think about the key categories deriving from my data. At this point I did consider that I was moving strongly away from the alternative research methods that Tim Stephens had pointed me in the direction of during the last tutorial such as hermeneutics and leaning into my experience of coding and gathering data in this way. However, the reason that I decided to stick with deriving categories from my codes was that I felt this a really good way of supporting my action research intervention that Frederico had reminded me of during the ethical enquiry form feedback. In Figure 3 I have shown an example of the code trees that I began to develop.
Key quotes from staff interviews:
Thoughts on values –
- “…because there’s no kind of monetary value, it doesn’t mean there’s no value at all”
- “The client was made aware of the value of the students’ work, their innovative and rich ideas, these creatives, taste makers and influencers are future practitioners in industry”
- “The value is far-reaching and I think that’s really what’s important”
Thoughts on limitations and challenges of SSPs –
- “It also skews the perception of the salary a student should receive, as they do it for a cheap flat fee due to their student status“
- “had a couple of issues where even when we’ve tried to explain a little bit, especially in the sense that we say it’s quite a mutual partnership that we’re trying to engage with because it’s not got any monies involved at the moment, it’s more about value”
- “if you were to look at a disadvantage from the academics point of view, which is exactly what you’ve just touched upon, it’s a huge amount of administrative. I mean, the legal side is it’s been heavy”
- “quite difficult to see and to to realize the concept that this academic piece of work. Needs to achieve the learning outcomes, but yet also there’s what the industry would actually like to see, which is then the two have to sit hand in hand”
Overall summaries from staff interviews are shown in the table in Figure 5.
Reference list:
- Saldana, J. (2021) The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. Sage: London.
- McCaffrey, G., Raffin-Bouchal, S., Moules. N. (2012) Hermeneutics as Research Approach: A Reappraisal. Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/160940691201100303 (accessed on: 13th December 2022).