research ii: qualitative data analysis

8/14/2019 Research II: Qualitative Data Analysis

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Research II: Qualitative Data Analysis

Collect some data using one or more qualitative methods, for example semi-structured interviewing, participant observation, or discourse analysis. Analyse

the data you have collected, demonstrating how you established coding rules,and developed categories and themes. What have you learned about dataanalysis in this exercise?

Coding edonis interviews using a Grounded Theory approach

The edonis project began during October 2009, when over one hundred learning

professionals chose to take part in my EdD research. Participants had been

approached directly by myself or had found out about it through the bloggingand tweeting around the project of those who had signed-up early. During the

first audio and textual communiqus from me (Noble, 2008), I stated that my

research would be mostly qualitative, and that the main methods of data

collection would be monthly online surveys for one year, using a mixture of open

and closed questions and comment boxes; and semi-structured interviews, most

of which would be conducted using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).

Participants were informed that: this was an iterative study, with a regularly

updated research question; that an online community of practice had been

created around the study with fortnightly, publicly-available edited research

interviews (Noble, 2009); and that the theories generated would not be

generalisable to the population. Of significance, I mentioned that I intended for

the project to continue beyond the three-year commitment which I was asking for

from those who signed-up. This open-endedness would later influence my

selection of Grounded Theory.

Between November 2008 and August 2009, I issued eight monthly online

surveys and recorded twenty-nine interviews with edonis participants. My plan,

while carrying out research alongside the taught phase of my EdD, had been to

analyse the data collected during these ten months from November 2009 to April


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2010. I would then take the focused-upon categories and concepts, and

theoretical codes and statements, to a further twenty-one interviewees and

several online focus spaces. However, aside from being ignorant of

methodology at this point and having constructed a research question which was

enough to fill seven or eight theses, I was receiving too much data for a sole

EdD researcher to handle (Appendix A). I recognised that, although in terms of

response rates my questions and prompts were of interest to most participants,

the structure of my surveys and broad interview areas was due to my interest in

studying professional development, the social web, and personal learning

networks. These are social constructions, extensively written about, which pre-

date the edonis project. I considered that around sixty people have continued to

take part during the first year of the project, and that many of these are learning

professionals who frequently communicate online for professional purposes, or

whose practices and stances are known by people around the United Kingdom

and elsewhere due to them having an online presence. Additionally, the

communication, collaboration and learning tools and spaces which many act

through, appear to be continually developing, and I decided to use a

methodology which would enable me to construct, with the data from the edonis

project, substantive theories which would be new, though always uncertain and

unfinished. Strauss and Corbin (1998:5) refer to these as being, qualifiable,

modifiable and open, in part, to negotiation; reflecting the ontological position

that the social world is constructed; and primarily so through action and

interaction. However, to continually construct, defend, repair and chang(e)

social realities (Silverman, 2007:38), I would eventually need to be able to

juxtapose the data emerging from similar contexts of participants, with other parts

of the social world, and would need to alter my approach to interviewing to one

which ensured the possibility of unexpected data (Silverman, 2007), and which

supported the narrowing of my focus.

For deep engagement with the data, I selected a Grounded Theory methodology

(Glaser and Strauss, 1967). This, I hoped, would enable me to analyse data


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using constant comparative methods (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). I might be able

to keep my research relevant through the ongoing relationship and shared

experiences between myself and the project participants. At this stage, it

became evident that I would need to build a process to show how the

action/interaction evolves (Strauss and Corbin, 1998:179), ensuring that theory

would be open to fresh and novel concepts and categories (Charmaz,

2006:24). The process consists of, a series of evolving sequences of

action/interaction that occur over time and space, changing or sometimes

remaining the same in response to the situation or context. (Strauss and Corbin,

1998:165)

Grounded theory is a research strategy whose purpose is to generate theory

from data (Punch and Wildy, 1995:2). It was established by Glaser and Strauss

(1967) and its progress has been contested and shaped by each, with writers like

Charmaz (2002) and Bryant (2002) showing how its abstractedness can lead to

positivistic assumptions, and who aimed to reconstruct it as humanistic.

Charmaz (2006:7) recognised that, latterly, Strauss brought notions of human

agency, emergent processes, social and subjective means, problem solving

practices and the open-ended study of action to Grounded Theory. This tension

is relevant to me in that I am researching with, rather than on, participants,

therefore my closeness to some necessitates self-reflection and action to ensure

validity. I do not engage further with such tensions in this paper, as there is

general agreement that all Grounded Theory processes should include, for

example, memo writing and coding, and this is my stage and focus here. Strauss

and Corbin (1998:110) define a memo as (t)he researchers record of analysis,

thoughts, interpretations, questions and directions for further data collection.

Memo-writing, personal and informal, was, for me, the most important part of the

process following data collection.

Grounded Theory allows you to view the world in a certain way, by studying

social reality (Charmaz, 2006:69). I came to recognise that, through my


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interviews, I had been engaging in symbolic interactionism. The interview, and

its visibility online, was something which: focused on everyday activity; allowed

negotiation of meaning and shared assumptions to emerge; and could become a

focus for others to consider, assess, communicate with, and act towards.

(ODonoghue, 2007:18). Interviewees could envisage the interview as an event,

and, if published online, the interview would become an artifact through which

others could have their experience of the world confirmed, modified, reinforced

or changed (ODonoghue, 2007:19). However, through the six broad questions

which I was repeatedly asking (see Appendix B), I, as researcher, was not part of

an interpretive process whereby shared meaning and future action was being

changed through the transparent social space of the interview.

I decided to reread and listen to all the interview data that had been collected, up

to interview number nineteen. I was looking for a common issue or puzzle, or

mundane action or problem, which I would then use the data relating to it to start

building theory through initial coding and memo-writing, and conceptualising and

categorising. If I was starting the project again, I would have carried out less

structured interviews, and recorded them before any surveys were issued.

Nevertheless, I moved quickly through this data and felt that there were open

questions and unprompted talk around being within a network. Charmaz

(2006:14) suggests coding (r)ich data (which) reveal participants views,

feelings, intentions and actions as well as the contexts and structures of their

lives, and I decided that initial, open coding would be carried out on the data

from a portion from each of interviews; twenty-two, twenty-three, and twenty-four;

in which participants spoke of a, the, or their, network or networks (see Appendix

C). I would analyse how their talk was ordered; how they act socially; and what

they have or are attempting to come to terms with (Silverman, 1997). Before

transcribing, I revisited the memos which I wrote during each interview (Figure 1).


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Figure 1 Memo-writing during edonis interview #22

It is unlikely that I would conceptualise data during interviews, however I could

trace, by revisiting the memos, if there now appeared to be early, provisional

concepts. I highlighted some of the interviewees assumptions, his concepts of

change and what it is to contribute online, however upon completion of the

interview, I found that the memos mostly consisted of descriptions. Strauss and

Corbin (1998:102) define a concept as a labelled phenomenon. It is an

abstract representation of an event, object or action/inaction that a researcher

identifies as being significant in the data.

Going back a little, one could conceive of the period up to these three interviews

as a process of sensitising. Charmaz (2006:47) states that this enables you to

be sensitive to meaning without forcing (my) explanations on data. My

selection of Grounded Theory may have arisen from my increasing sensitivity


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following each survey return and interview. Over the past year, there has been a

sustained level of participation, though an absence of engagement with the

iterative research question through the online community. Presently, it is not

publicly discussed or mentioned online by participants. I have been able to

recognise many specific, and some common, issues from the data.

Unfortunately, I have missed an early opportunity to sample on the basis of

emerging concepts (Strauss and Corbin, 1998:207). However, as someone who

is visible in several online spaces, variable in size and activity, I am able to

sensitise myself through daily updates of blog posts by participants which are fed

through the project website. By taking notes on those self-published works which

have content relating to the description or problematising of networks, or action

and interaction around the conception of it (and in addition to those initial notes

during the interview), I am able to recognise a number of issues (potential

categories) that might relate to dealing with networks. At this point, where I am

about to start open, line-by-line coding and I am in a conceptual mode of

analysis (Strauss and Corbin, 1998:66), it is important to continue to develop my

sensitivity as I am at the pre-categories stage, unsure of which data will be

relevant in the construction of codes and concepts. I found that a Grounded

Theory approach enabled me to take a year of sensitising myself and building

trusting relationships through the edonis project, into coding and memo-writing,

with categories beginning to emerge; helping me to prepare for my next

interviews (October 2009 August 2010). I would be able to move to a second

stage, that of interviewing to sample, based on emerging concepts (Strauss and

Corbin, 1998). Meantime, I recognised that my initial interviewing methods had

probably, to a degree, foreclose(d) on discovery (Strauss and Corbin,

1998:207), due to the structure before and during the interviews.

In relation to the three interviews segments, there were two types of memos

written. Firstly, I wrote operation notes as the interviewee spoke (Figure 1).

Such a memo included my: early categories; ideas for deep, possibly tangential

questions and areas for discussion; and possible in vivo codes. Charmaz


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(2006:32) encourages one to (p)ay attention to participants language, meanings

and lives. They were mostly descriptive rather than analytical and were

diagrammatical, to the extent that related text was clustered around specific parts

of the memo sheet. Operational memos should be orderly, progressive,

systematic and easily retrievable for sorting and cross-referencing (Strauss and

Corbin, 1998:220), however I feel that the important working documents, to which

I will return, change, and use for greater insight, will be the memos written while

listening to, or reading, the interviews several days after the event, and prior to

line-by-line coding. Each memo is dated when it was written and is titled with the

number of the interview from which it derives. It contains: emergent codes and

categories, and changes in them; raw data, analytic ideas, and breaks in logic

(Strauss and Corbin, 1998). Appendix D shows an excerpt from the memo

written for interview twenty-four. Further questions, emerging concepts,

properties and dimensions, and inconsistencies and variables, are colour-coded,

and from the memos for the three interviews, were compared for similarities to

form the early categories (Appendix E). These were formed while also carrying

out line-by-line coding of the transcripts, to which I will turn shortly. Memos will

be written from now on after the collection of new data, with earlier memos being

redrafted if impacted upon. Charmaz (2006) ascribes importance to moving

quickly through the data and writing informally, so that thoughts are recorded

spontaneously. However, I am lacking experience of memo-writing at a time in

the projects life when the data-driven research question needs to emerge and

new data will be collected shortly. Also, the memos written for the three interview

segments ran to six thousand, four hundred words; much longer than the

transcripts. Between analysing the memos and writing the early categories, I

have realised that my memo-writing needs to be more focused around new

codes which appear to be relevant, and the broad categories which now exist.

I openly coded portions of the three interviews, making notes, comments,

observations and queries (ODonoghue, 2007:136), and fracturing the data in

the process. My aim was to break down the data into concepts using a line-by-


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line approach. To do this, I split my desktop screen. On the left was the

transcription of edonis interviews twenty-two to twenty-four; on the right was a

blank Word document (Figure 2).

Figure 2 Line-by-line coding of edonis interview #24

Each of the three interview mp3 files were queued-up for me to easily relisten to

if necessary, via the iTunes player. Working between the transcript, coding file

and audio file, I generated codes for each action and description spoken by the

interviewee. Open coding requires me to interrogate the data to give up codes,

including in vivo ones. Recognising these, even if they are shortly-after

discarded, can only be done once the researcher feels sensitive to the data, as

well as the participants. I had always thought that a wonderful new metaphor

would be spoken, which would stimulate my analysis. It is seductive to preserve

a participants meanings (Charmaz, 2006:55), however the in vivo code must be

able to move beyond the context and the individual, and be comparable and

analysable, and I found that I was interpreting almost all of the data.

Charmaz (2006) suggests that it is difficult to separate open from axial coding,

therefore during this microanalysis I was trying to work seamlessly so that rather

quickly I would be able to move from fractured data to concepts and categories,

and the construction of properties and dimensions. Having immersed myself in

the research over the last year, and being able to listen again to the interviews


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and read transcripts from wherever I was in the world, due to the data being

stored on my mobile device, I was confident that I would soon be identifying the

variety of conditions, actions/interactions and consequences associated with a

phenomenon. (Strauss, 1987:126) However, the familiarity of the interview

portions, and the entire social and academic structure of the project within which

it existed, meant that I needed to be reflexive in order to distance myself from the

origins of the mass of data and start to creat(e) abstract interpretive

understandings of the data. (Charmaz, 2006:9) One example would be how I

dealt with talk around personal learning networks (PLNs). In the transcribed

portions, I, and the interviewee often mentioned this phrase, conceptualising it as

something and ascribing properties, some of which were preconceived while

others appear to have been constructed during a conversational part of the

interview. However, constructing categories around personal learning networks

would be too descriptive and too focused upon those people within the project

(small numbers, as indicated in one of the surveys) who already subscribed to

the notionof the existence of PLNs. As I am looking to facilitate the emergence

of new concepts and categories, through codes which stick to the data

(Charmaz, 2006:45), I had to step-back from my pre-existing relationships and

experiences of conducting the interviews. I had already communicated

preconceptions during the preparation guides for each of my first stage

interviews (see Appendix F), and so coding required extra effort to work only with

the text in front of me. Of benefit in the long-term is that I also come to

understand participants preconceptions. These can be wrestled with during

later interviews and enable me to identify pre-existing in vivo codes; though

these may be found to be helpful in framing data later.

As I moved through the transcripts line-by-line, I was asking, what is happening

here?, and attempting to understand acts and accounts, scenes and

sentiments, stories and silences from our research participants view. (Charmaz,

2006:46). Quickly, I became aware of what was being struggled with (Glaser,

1978) and I continued through the text at a steady pace, creatively naming each


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line. As I did this, I was considering the content of my memos which were being

written around this time, and the next stage; focused coding (Charmaz, 2006:42).

I was making links between initial codes as I worked, jotting these into a further

word processing document. Line-by-line coding ran to three thousand words,

exceeding the length of the transcription. As an education technologist who,

nonetheless, does not wish to invest time and money in more ICT-based

solutions, I chose to immerse myself in the codes using a word processor; using

only Wordle.net to help me with a visual representation of my coding (Figure 3).

Figure 3 Wordle representation of line-by-line coding of edonis interviews #22-24

Wordle allows you to copy and paste text into an online field. One is then

presented with the most prominent words and phrases which appear in varying

sizes, depending upon the frequency of appearance in my codes. Although not

fit for formal research purposes and the making of final decisions on emerging

concepts and categories, it did assist me in pulling-together what was being

spoken about across the three interview segments. From patterns in the data

across my memos and coding document, I interpreted that there were several

issues (categories) for these learning professionals. Strauss and Corbin


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(1998:124) define a category as a problem, issue, event, or happening that is

significant to respondents. From my memo writing and open coding, I

constructed these as: information flow and management; data and people; what

it means to meetand to knowpeople; delineating relationships by social setting;

positioning oneself in a/your network; the self-publication of data; how text

becomes visible; the act of service; learning in a space other than a physical one;

individuals experiences; the nature of talk; affective projection; artifacts and

action; and learning and earning. Artifacts and action would shortly be

subsumed by other categories which had similar properties and dimensions.

I have written the categories in a way which allows me to explore them in other

contexts with other edonis participants; enabling comparison, and expanding

properties and dimensions on the way to building substantive theory. At this

stage, with over nine thousand words of analysis across my memos and line-by-

line coding, I reduced the categories and focused on coding around only those

which remained (Strauss, 1987). I then revisited my initial coding, to gain a

greater understanding of the created categories. This process encompassed

focused coding and the revisiting of properties and dimensions which emerged

during what could have been discretely recognised as the axial coding part of my

activity. I recognise that this is an early stage of my teleographic theory, though

being able to suggest relationships between and within categories informs the

way that I am changing the new interviews, including how I, choose the sites,

persons and documents that will maximise opportunities for comparative

analysis (Strauss and Corbin, 1998:211). I had moved from my memos and

line-by-line coding to a list of concepts with emerging properties and dimensions.

To pull together what is going on here?, I needed to group these into

categories, which, explain Strauss and Corbin (1998), enable the abstract

labelling of phenomena, allowing explanation and prediction. By phenomena,

Strauss and Corbin (1998:120) mean, repeated patterns of happenings, events,

or actions/interactions that represent what people do or say in response to the

problems and situations in which they find themselves. Strauss and Corbin


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(1998:79) state that the properties of a situation convey similes and metaphors,

and transcend the specific situation. Examples from my analysis include, under

Dealing with new data: dipping in, channels, passing the parcel, opening

packets, and turning a switch. These examples are some of the many listed

which were constructed by me and were recognisable in each of the interview

segments. As other data is examined using them, with the possibility of the

properties and dimensions being refined, people will be helped to know and

understand an aspect of the social world. These may be emerging elsewhere or

will do so later, however I am becoming sensitive to them now; building theory

with my research participants. They help me to ask other questions and to be

prepared for later, wider comparisons. It is noticeable that concepts, properties,

and dimensions appear in multiple locations in Appendix E. It is natural that

classifications relating to phenomena will not be singularly pidgeon-holed, though

I may be able to relate some categories shortly.

In my activity, open and axial coding periods were indistinct. I started to

construct categories as I was memo-writing, then when I was carrying-out open

and focused coding, and again when I returned to my memos. Axial coding is

where I relat(e) categories to sub-categories along the lines of their properties

and dimensions (Strauss and Corbin, 1998:124). It answers the when, where,

why, who, how and with what consequences (Strauss & Corbin (1998:125).

Strauss (1987) outlined the following as required tasks: Laying out the properties

of a category and their dimensions, a task that begins during open coding;

identifying the variety of conditions, actions/interactions and consequences

associated with a phenomenon; relating a category to its sub-categories through

statements denoting how they are related to each other; looking for clues in the

data that denote how major categories might relate to each other. I recognise

that although axial coding was a early feature of my work, there remain parts of

the latter tasks above to be done before I collect more data. In examining the

above categories, I would, for the purposes of my next interview plan, be wanting

to progress with around three categories, and several sub-categories. These


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would be heuristic devices to allow me to write coherently about how learning

professionals deal with new relationships, data, and spaces, though there may

be further changes as puzzling new data or new categories (could) emerge

(Strauss and Corbin, 1998:71). The framework from which I am now working can

be seen in Figure 4. One can see the categories along the top of the page, with

subcategories emboldened throughout. Within the text boxes are properties

common to the three interview segments, and dimensions along which each

participant could be placed.

I analysed concepts, properties and dimensions across the interview segments to

identify which had emerged in more than one setting and should be present in

the categories and subcategories. I had to be creative to recognise, group and

name the emerging categories, and to identify follow-up questions and foci. This

came from comparing data across the interviews, and looking for similarities and

differences. As I construct this text document, I become concerned on two

levels. Firstly, have I forced my explanations on the data (Charmaz, 2006); and

secondly, to what extent are the words that I bring to the categories already

constructed by my experiences? Strauss and Corbin (1998) state that one

should self-consciously bring this to the analysis as it is not likely that it can be

entirely hidden, but that it should not drive the analysis. I chose to develop each

initial category by moving through my transcriptions, memos, and line-by-line

coding once more. I was looking to identify subcategories and possibly reduce

the number of categories. By now I was operating in the abstract, that is the etic

and emic codes were written in a way which could not be contextualised or

attributed to an individual. I was increasingly applying an analytical framework to

the data (Charmaz, 2006:162), which restricts what I can know and, with

experience, I would consider avoiding.


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Dealing with new relationships Dealing with new data Dea lin w ith new s aces

dipping inimmerseddrowningimmediatedelayedswitching offturning oversinglemulti-mediainteractivepass parcelscattergunpushing packet unopenedpushing packet openedpushingpacket filteredproactivereactivechannelsmass

mentormenteepublisherconsumeraccess helpaccess groupfull attentionno attentionknown for actionsknown for roleshallow meetingdeep meetingreadingrespondingmeetinglikely to meetmay meetunlikely to meetdisinterested peripherysurveillance coreold grouping of peoplenew grouping of peoplerevealing oneselfconcealing oneself

old friendsold worknew worknew friendsofflineonlinequantifyingtrying tonot quantifyingduty tono dutyexciting emergence of relationshipsmundane establisherelationshipsperipheral coremoving inwardsmoving outwardshidden networks/connections visiblenetworks/connectionstechnologically mediatednot technologically mediatedartici ant attendee

PLN pre-definedindividually definedundefinedownedexistsnetworknetworksblurred with everythingpushing datapulling dataknown membershipunknown membershipopen actions and thoughtsclosed actions and thoughtskeeping an eyeengagingperceived flatperceived hierarchy

artifactsfilteringactionformalinformalperformativeautonomousconstructedoff the shelf

valued actionunvalued actioncomfort...discomfortindividualgovernmentlinked to focus of networkcrossovernot linked to focus ofnetworkgiving togiving and takingtaking fromgiving wellgiving badlyneeding to publishfeeling compelled topublishdisinterested in publishingcontributing mediacontributing supportnot contributing

knownnot yet knownunknown

permanenttemporarysubscribingtargetedhabitinterest in personinterest in datasingle channelmulti-channelspublished oncerepublishedwisdom of onewisdom of manynumberscommentbaton droppedpassed onbecomes a stickbecomes usevisiblemissingmissedaccessing others mindaccessing others lived liferelevant to him or herirrelevant to him or hertext messageessaydis lacement of artifacts chan e in work lace

servicingbeing servicedwithin a PLNcentre of myPLNknown beforenewly knownunknownlisteningtalkingdiscussinggroupindividual

aware of service roleunaware of service role

elevate network elevate teachercrowd sourceexpertformalinformalpreplanned spontaneoustexttalk

on taporderedexpertexpertiseonlineofflinehidden expertisevisible expertisevisible reflectionhidden reflectionlearner at the centrelearners at the centreofficial channelunofficial channel

centrecoreperipherysilentloudpassivedormantdisappear

sanctionopportunity costeasy to dropabandoningdifficult to dropignoringdiscardingreadingunable to readsocialformalagencyamenablepersuaded

multiplesingularsynchronousalmost synchronousbothasynchronousconnectedunconnectedboundedunboundeddirectindirectknownunknownwading throughscooping upforward focusedbackward focusedconversationventingoutcomes-based talkprofessional talksocial talk

changedifferencereflectionbeing informedalways onbreaksalways offurgencysocialwasting timevaluable use of family timenil responsesingle responsemulti-responsephysical overloadmental overloadmissing datanot missing datainteresteddisinterestedknowing PLNknowing familyin balance with networkout of balance with networkgratitude to persongratitude to networkno gratitude

improving practiceimproving performanceimproving profittechnon-techtransmissionconstructioncollaborate with customers collaborate with competitionpermanent work project work

information flow and management

valuing datavaluing peoplePLNPrN edtechprojectpeople by similar rolemixpeople by keywordno costs of entrycosts of entryfluid relationshipsfixed relationshipsacting on dataconsuming dataknown data sourceunknown data source

data and people

what it means to meet and to know people

positioning oneself in a/your network

self-publication of data

how text becomes visible

the act of service

individuals experiences

affective projection

learning and earning

edonis project categories,

subcategories, and emerging properties

and dimensions 25/9/09

Figure 4

delineating relationships by social setting

the nature of talk

learning in a space other than a physical


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The twenty-one second stage interviews will now sample these three major

categories across contexts. The categories will form the areas which I will hope

to cover, but not force during the interviews. They are rather broad, so not only

will I remain alert to tangential conversation and extra questions leading to new

or expanded categories, properties and dimensions, but after a further ten or so

interviews, I will look to collapse these again. The interviewees will continue to

be found across the UK, the USA and Australia, and from a number of learning

professional roles and sectors.

Before this, however, I will return to those who I interviewed and whose data I

coded. They will, as a group of three, be invited to an online video conference

call, where I will share the present iteration of the major categories. Such an

approach should be replicated throughout the three years to ensure that I work

rigorously, empirically and formally (Silverman, 2007). They will be able to

comment on the validity of my emerging theoretical scheme, and see whether it

fits their case. If I have crystalised participants experiences (Charmaz,

2006:54) here, then my study can be said to fit the empirical world. Additionally,

instead of taking what has been said to me as a snapshot of their world, this

gives me the opportunity to explore preconceptions, vague in vivo codes, and

metaphors; at the same time building relationships as I offer these participants

new insights into their practice (Silverman, 2007:110).

Conclusion

Using a Grounded methodology has transformed my approach to research.

Working within a loose open source-style community of educators for the last

four years has forged me as a practitioner, broadcaster, leader, and researcher

who attempts to be reflective and reflexive, and whose recent work is testament

to constructing voices and artifacts. Recently through my edonis activities, I have

started a journey to develop hypotheses inductively and transparently. I have


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met an early target of developing categories which fit the data derived from

segments of three interviews. Version Four of the research question or problem

is now more owned by the project than by myself. It borrows its style from

symbolic interactionism, which was my route into Grounded Theory, and the

identification of problems or issues in the data. Presently, I communicate that I

am examining (h)ow participants deal with a phenomenon.

(ODonoghue, 2007:32), that is, How do participants in the edonis project deal

with new relationships, new data, and new spaces. I can consider making

comparisons across the edonis participants and/or move to sample the emerging

substantive theories across other communities and contexts. I will continue to

work with the categories, and will be sampling, refining and collapsing them over

the next year. I may go on to write propositions, or construct models and

classification schemes (ODonoghue, 2007:54). Once the categories are

saturated, that is when no new information emerges through coding (Strauss

and Corbin, 1998), my next task will be conceptual ordering and then the

building of substantive theory which will be checked out against incoming data

and modified, extended, or deleted as necessary. (Strauss and Corbin, 1998:22)

My analysis could be termed anti-realist and subjective, in that mine is not a

disinterested approach. There are difficulties in constructing categories from

interviewees who are representing their own world. A Grounded Theorist would

argue that follow-up interviews, for example, are where recognised assumptions

are dealt with and are not adopted into the analysis . I may still work too rigidly

and need to consider the many settings in which data can be collected to refine

the concepts and categories, or later, theories. This could take me out of the

study into a relaxing environment, and see me less bounded by time. Finally,

Charmaz (2006:19) asked, (a)re the data sufficient to reveal changes over

time? I am confident that with my plan for collecting new data, the established

relationships with research participants that I have, and the broad, change-

related categories under development; I will develop substantive theories by the

end of the three-year cycle.


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Appendix A

Screenshot of the edonis project account at http://www.surveymonkey .com. Note the numbers of

responses to each survey


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Appendix B

A screenshot fromhttp://edonis.ning.com, showing a blog post from April 13, 2009


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Appendix C

Excerpt from the transcription of edonis #23

You are someone who has mentioned previously on the edonis site that you are activelydeveloping a personal learning network, but what does that mean to you, what does itlook like, who or what does it consists of?

For me it is primarily a combination of blogs coming into an RSS reader, and I think I amprobably subscribed to about 120 at the moment, of which about half are educationblogging, probably the rest of that split three ways between marketing and things likethat, technology and various social ones, friends of mine that are blogging and the otherkey component of that these days is Twitter and following about 190 being followed byabout just under 400 I think and so that allows me access to a wide range of expertisebut as I said earlier I am the one filtering it and I control everything I read, I just dip independing on what other priorities I have got going on at the time

You mentioned about subscribing to blogs as maybe part of your personal learningnetwork, does that mean that you would count an educator in the States whose blogappeals to you, would you count them as being in your personal learning network?

Yes

Lets imagine you had never actually synchronously communicated with them, wouldthey still be part of your network?

Yes, for me, even if I have never met them, even if I have never commented on them, ifwhat they are doing is making a difference to my learning then they are part of my PLN.There are people who I can have immediate access on them almost on a day by day

basis and there are probably a handful of people that I will Twitter backwards andforwards or comment on their blogs regularly, all the way down to people who I havenever spoken to, never met before and may well never do, but they are having aninfluence on my thinking and more directly to my practice

You have touched on it a minute ago, but could you expand more on how you go aboutmanaging the information that comes to you through your PLN.

My feed read is broken up into various folders. I try and stay on top of it and go through itonce every couple of days and on days when I cant there are probably half a dozenblogs that I will pick on directly, and if the worst comes to the worst, everything else getsmarked always read because what seems to happen is if there is something that is

important enough, someone else will pick it up, someone else will either share it or tweetabout it so I will kind of pick it up another way. There was a point where I went throughdesperately trying to read everything but that then got in the way of various other thingsso I have abandoned that approach. Just playing around the last couple of weeks, Ihave installed Seismic to filter Twitter because I was getting to the stage where I feltthere was quite a lot I was missing, so I have got a group there of probably about 20people whose tweets I dont want to miss.


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Appendix D

follow-up questions properties dimensions concepts

Is Da selecting a description off-the-shelf? He reveals that the PLN is something

which he has considered, but which he remains unsatisfied. What is ones

relationship to those in the PLN? There is no typology being used here, though it

appears that one would be helpful to Da. I could compare conception of mentors

and mentoring between those who claim to have a PLN, and those who state that

they have a mentor. Where was the term PLN first used, and in what context?

Does it come from theory-building or has it developed through online artifacts

related to professionals action? This could be a term which grew from onlineaction and is now being claimed for ongoing, pre-existing relationships in

traditional public and private spaces. How do offline relationships help Da? He

appears to suggest that now relationships online and offline are not noticeably

distinguishable. I could ask about what things he is helped with. Is there then a

difference in what the PLN helps him with? For example, does the help relate to

education technology more than, say, classroom management? How have those

initially online-only relationships developed to where he now gives them real life

status? What does a real life relationship look like? Is it mutual? How does Da

presently make new professional relationships? How do the unknown, future-

supportive people become known? How are questions asked of those who are

not contactable digitally? Is there an internal hierarchy relating to responses to

questions ie how are the responses treated and weighted in relation to each

other, and to the little-known context of Das professional life? Da appears to

value asynchronous help and the potential for gathering multiple responses.

Does a response elevate someone within his PLN? What options does he give

himself for taking forward action with continued support? Does he return to the

person who gave the best answer? What about those whose advice he chooses

to discard on this occasion? Which specific issues are asked about online?


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Appendix D (continued)

How does he classify these issues? How does he balance the possibility of an

early, short response versus delaying support in the later identifying of, and

approach to, a specific person and space for (one-to-one) discussion? How does

one work towards the goal of being guaranteed a response? I could ask Da to

illustrate what might be learnt in a learning network, or what the foci of his

network/s are (which I could then categorise he mentions support or advice,

though feels to an extent these are interchangeable). He mentions the formality

of Edtechroundup. This is not a corporate space, so where does the formality

derive from? Does formality relate to frequency, length, implicit and explicit

structure and hierarchies? Is there pressure on the self-publisher to write

formally? Where does this performative demand to blog come from? Is it the

(perceived) audience; from individual histories of constructing text; or the

permanency of the artifact? Is formality related to factors other than structure?

Da appears to suggest that learning is relative to greater time and space for

thought and live discussion. What would make learning less likely in a network

or to be less of a priority for the owner of the network? There appears to be an

issue with the degree of learning which occurs in a mentoring or helping role, and

which occurs in a flattened group space. Which education topics are more likely

to be discussable in an online space by a group? How could his valued online

learning (group) experiences be replicable in his non-digital professional groups?

What types of impact does Da wish to experience? What is taken out of a

structured space? Is it something which requires further processing or is there

something off-the-shelf? What, if anything, is constructed at the end of the

discussion or listening period? Does the network activity continue afterwards or

is there a break in communication? To what extent does the network connect

with other networks, experiences, artifacts and theories?


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Appendix E

Dealing with

information flow and management

dipping inimmerseddrowningimmediatedelayedswitching offturning oversinglemulti-mediainteractivepass parcelscattergunpushing packet unopenedpushing packet openedpushing packet filteredproactivereactivechannelsmass

data and people

valuing datavaluing peoplePLNPrN edtechprojectpeople by similar rolemixpeople by keywordno costs of entrycosts of entryfluid relationshipsfixed relationshipsacting on dataconsuming dataknown data sourceunknown data source

what it means to meet and to know people

mentormenteepublisherconsumer

access helpaccess groupfull attentionno attentionknown for actionsknown for roleshallow meetingdeep meetingreadingrespondingmeetinglikely to meetmay meetunlikely to meetdisinterested peripherysurveillance coreold grouping of peoplenew grouping of peoplerevealing oneselfconcealing oneself

delineating relationships by social setting

old friendsold worknew worknew friendsofflineonlinequantifyingtrying tonot quantifyingduty tono dutyexciting emergence of relationshipsmundane established relationshipsperipheral coremoving inwardsmoving outwardshidden networks/connections visible networks/connections


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Appendix E (continued)

technologically mediatednot technologically mediatedparticipant attendee

positioning oneself in a/your network

PLN pre-definedindividually definedundefinedownedexistsnetworknetworksblurred with everythingpushing datapulling dataknown membershipunknown membershipopen actions and thoughtsclosed actions and thoughtskeeping an eyeengagingperceived flatperceived hierarchy

self-publication of data

artifactsfilteringactionformalinformalperformativeautonomousconstructedoff the shelfvalued actionunvalued actioncomfort...discomfortindividualgovernmentlinked to focus of networkcrossovernot linked to focus of networkgiving togiving and takingtaking fromgiving wellgiving badly

needing to publishfeeling compelled to publishdisinterested in publishingcontributing mediacontributing supportnot contributing

how text becomes visible

knownnot yet knownunknownpermanenttemporarysubscribingtargetedhabitinterest in personinterest in datasingle channelmulti-channelspublished oncerepublishedwisdom of onewisdom of many

numberscommentbaton droppedpassed onbecomes a stickbecomes of usevisiblemissingmissedaccessing others mindaccessing others lived liferelevant to him or herirrelevant to him or hertext messageessaydisplacement of artifacts change in workplace


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the act of service

servicingbeing servicedwithin a PLNcentre of my PLNknown beforenewly knownunknownlisteningtalkingdiscussinggroupindividualaware of service roleunaware of service role

learning in a space other than a physical one

elevate network elevate teachercrowd sourceexpertformalinformal

preplanned spontaneoustexttalkon taporderedexpertexpertiseonlineofflinehidden expertisevisible expertisevisible reflectionhidden reflectionlearner at the centrelearners at the centreofficial channelunofficial channel

individuals experiences

centrecoreperipherysilentloudpassivedormantdisappearsanctionopportunity costeasy to dropabandoningdifficult to dropignoringdiscardingreadingunable to readsocialformalagencyamenablepersuaded

the nature of talk

multiplesingularsynchronousalmost synchronousbothasynchronousconnectedunconnectedboundedunboundeddirectindirectknownunknownwading throughscooping upforward focusedbackward focusedconversationventing


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outcomes-based talkprofessional talksocial talk

affective projection

changedifferencereflectionbeing informedalways onbreaksalways offurgencysocialwasting timevaluable use of family timenil responsesingle responsemulti-responsephysical overloadmental overloadmissing datanot missing datainteresteddisinterestedknowing PLNknowing familyin balance with networkout of balance with network

gratitude to persongratitude to networkno gratitude

learning and earning

improving practiceimproving performanceimproving profittechnon-techtransmissionconstructioncollaborate with customers collaborate with competitionpermanent work project work

artifacts and action was removed at this stage


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Appendix F

An example of the core text sent by email to interviewees prior to the interview. Note that the

content varies slightly depending on the type of learning professional.

The following are areas I would like cover during the interview:

Brief background about you and your career in education

your experiences of ICT-related training and professional development

your notion of 'learning network'

uses of the social web that you have been attracted to

the extent to which you see your use of ICT as a learning professionalchanging over the next 3 years.

Please let me know if there is anything you would like to be added to the list, orhave removed.

For the final part of the interview, I would like to talk about practice which youpreviously indicated you would like to talk about (relating to Question 6 of the'interview preparation'). You stated:


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