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Step 4 was similar to Step 1 and Step 2 combined, but this time I was looking specifically
at how participants’ responses helped answer the research questions of the study. During this
step, I was not looking to create or refine codes; instead, I was looking at what their direct
responses to the research questions were. All transcripts were recoded and new categories
created to align to the research questions.
During Step 5, I ran queries in NVivo using nodes from the second and third cycles to
identify areas of divergence and convergence among all participants.
I was hoping to find
extreme examples that may bring insights by nature of being outliers. I did not find any instances
that could be considered extreme divergences, so that become a dead end, and I returned to
looking for commonalities or areas of convergence. This proved more fruitful; thus, I moved to
the next step in the process.
During this sixth and last step, I began reorganizing
codes into more condensed
groupings and as themes began to emerge there was a moment when I thought I had too many
themes. I took a couple of days away from the data and came back with an idea for narrowing
down to the three most salient themes that would speak to the research questions and be
interesting to instructional design and technology professionals as new lines of inquiry and
practice. At this point I revisited the theoretical framework to apply it to the findings. Rather than
weave the theoretical framework throughout the findings narrative, it made more sense and
seemed more practical to write a subsection title “Manifestations of Agency”
in which I apply
the framework to the findings.
In this section I have detailed my data analysis process and how I arrived to selecting my
final themes. In the next section I introduce the participants, not as sources of data, but rather as
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people with complex lives and diverse circumstances with HyFlex learning as a common thread
in their lived experiences.
