D ATA ANALYSIS

When conducting qualitative research we are often left with huge amounts of data. In order to be able to analyse these data the first thing we have to do is to categorise them. This process is called coding in the literature of the area, and means that based on the research question we decide on central topics that we see as important in order to shine a light on the overall research question, and categorise the data according to this. These topics are then used as codes to mark where in the material we find information regarding this specific category (Leiulfsrud & Hvinden, 2007 p. 230-231). This process, with regards to my own survey, is what will be presented below.

4.5.1 Coding qualitative data

As mentioned above I used semi structured interviews to gather the data I needed in order to write this thesis. The term semi structured can lead readers to believe that the transcribed data will also be semi structured and thus easily comparable, however, this is not the case.

As mentioned previously in this chapter one main aspect of semi structured interviewing is flexibility; the order in which the topics are introduced varies from interview to interview depending on the information given by the respective informant (Leiulfsrud & Hvinden, 2007, p. 230). This makes the process of coding the information vital.

I started this process by deciding which and what kind of codes to use. With regards to the kind of codes, I decided on descriptive codes. These are codes that describe the content of the paragraph that is being coded, rather than connecting the content to theories of the area.

The reason why I decided on this technique is that it is better suited when the purpose of the coding is to get a general overview of the data, rather than to interpret the data in connection to theories written by others (Leiulfsrud & Hvinden, 2007, p. 232). As will be shown when I present my survey I started by giving a general overview of the results from my survey in chapter 5 and 6 before moving on to discuss the results in view of results from other surveys and theories of reading in chapter 7.

When I had decided on which kind of codes to use I had to decide on the actual codes themselves. In order to keep an overview of all the information gathered it is important not to use too many codes. The other thing I had to focus on was what kind of information that was the most relevant to the research question (Leiulfsrud & Hvinden, 2007, p. 231). I decided on these codes:

1. Background information 2. Amount of reading 3. Reading strategies

4. Attitudes 5. Resources

6. Reading in LK06

The first code relates to information with regards to the informants’ education, teaching experience, stays abroad and how comfortable they feel speaking English. This code is not directly based on the research question, however the background information helps shine a light on other information given by the informants. The second code marks out where the informants give information on what is read in class. The third code was used for marking how reading was taught, and the fourth to mark out where statements from the informants showed what their attitudes towards this teaching are. Looking at code five, it might seem that this has little or nothing to do with the research question, however I asked about the resources in order to see whether the amount of reading was at all connected to the resources available at the individual schools. The last code was used to mark out where the informants gave information on whether or not their teaching practise with regards to reading had changed at all after the LK06 syllabus was put into action, and also how they worked on specific learning objectives connected to this syllabus.

I went through all the transcribed interviews using these codes and then gathered all the information with regards to each code on a separate sheet, marking every paragraph with which informant the information came from. In this way I was able to get a good overview of the situation with regards to each of these separate codes, which in turn made me able to give an overall picture of the situation in upper secondary school with regards to reading as it was presented to me by my informants.

To sum up, we see that it is the sheer amount of data gathered that is the main challenge when analysing qualitative data. When using semi structured interviews the different topics and questions will occur at different stages of the interview, and it is therefore impossible to lay out the interviews next to each other and compare them paragraph by paragraph. The

analysis is most commonly done by coding the interviews and comparing the information given under each code by each individual informant with each other. This is the technique I used when analysing the data for my survey. Having done this the next step is to present the data in an orderly fashion that will be understandable to the reader. How I chose to do this will be presented below.