Analysis/ Thematic analysis
Vaismoradi, Jones, Turunen & Snelgrove (2016), attempt to express a definition of thematic analysis. According to this definition thematic analysis and content analysis are both placed under the umbrella of the qualitative descriptive design. The idea that they are expressing is that their main characteristic is the systematic process of coding, examining of meaning and provision of a description of the social reality through the creation of theme (Vaismoradi, Jones, Turunen & Snelgrove, 2016). The analytical significance of the theme derives from the idea that the description of the process of theme development depends on the definition and clarification of the following:
the meaning of the theme as a common point of reference and
the understanding of the difference between the category and theme (Vaismoradi, Jones, Turunen & Snelgrove, 2016).
Hsieh & Shannon (2005) have provided a clear distinction between the category and theme as they express: a category is an idea that is directly expressed in the text, but a theme is more than a category. The benefit of this approach in the analysis of the data, is the inclusion of creativity and the involvement of researchers’ subjectivity in the different steps of theme development (Vaismoradi, Jones, Turunen & Snelgrove, 2016).
This study has chosen for the analysis of the data gathered a qualitative data analysis (thematic analysis) as it provides the capability to lead to the investigation of phenomena, processes and behaviours that were not anticipated in advance. Also, an advantage of qualitative analysis is the investigation characterized by detail and depth and performed exploration of the experience of social subjects.
Questionnaires
The quantitative part of the current action research project is the one regarding the perceptions of parents/carers towards accessing the local outdoors. The baseline questionnaires have been distributed to the parents/carers of this project in the beginning of the action research project. The categories of the baseline questionnaires are the following:
|
