Review #2 – Data coding Lee 1/6Miha LeeProfessor RivasSED 60014 March 2007Review on the data coding: Method of Analyzing my Qualitative DataMy tentative action research topic is “the role of the well-structured labactivities in the process of learning chemistry concepts.” The purpose of this paperis to examine the role of the well-structured experiments in chemistry and todescribe conceptual change that will take place during lab activities. The questionsthat I want to examine are the followings:A. What are the learners’ prior knowledge regarding metal?B. How do the learners’ concepts change during lab activities?C. Is students’ engagement in experiments effective in promoting conceptualchange?Thus, my data will consist of the documents collected from the pretest and theposttest of learning objectives in the unit metal, survey of students’ attitude towardPOE method, the lab papers. Those tests and lab papers will be carefully designedbased on the conceptual analysis of the textbook in order to probe the students’prior knowledge and to monitor their conceptual change over the lab activities.Hoepfl (1997) points out that qualitative methodology is a powerful tool forenhancing our understanding of teaching and learning, and uses a naturalisticapproach that seek to understand phenomena in content specific settings.Therefore, for my action research, qualitative approach will be taken by employingan array of open-ended questions in the documents to gain better insights aboutstudents’ learning in a classroom setting. According to Johnson (2007), open-endedquestions allow respondents unlimited choices, and provide a more accurate senseof what respondents are actually thinking. However, problems with open-ended questions are the analysis of them. For thebeginner researcher, qualitative data seems so messy that the researcher can bepuzzled and frustrated with the undertaking to analyze it. This is the same reasonwhy some teachers avoid using open-ended questions in their assessments.Nevertheless, I prefer to take the qualitative approach to my action research inorder to get a wide range of information and insights from the data. Bogdan and Biklen define qualitative data analysis as “working with data,Review #2 – Data coding Lee 2/6organizing it, breaking it into manageable units, synthesizing it, searching forpatterns, discovering what is important and what is to be learned, and decidingwhat you will tell others.” (1982, p 145) Qualitative researchers tend to useinductive analysis of data, which means that some generalizations emerge out ofthe data. (Johnson, 2007; Hoepfl, 1997; Mertler, 2006) The process of coding andinterpreting data is a critical part of qualitative research because this processrequires the researcher’s creativity. (Foss & Waters, 2003) It is challenging to placethe raw data into logical and meaningful categories, to examine them in a holisticmanner, and to find a way to communicate this interpretation to others. (Hoepfl,1997) For inductive data analysis, there seem to be several steps to follow. Codingdata, developing themes, and interpreting the themes (Foss & Waters, 2003);organization, description, and interpretation (Mertler, 2006); open coding, axialcoding, and translating (Hoepfl, 1997). The point is whether these steps are in alinear fashion or not. The answer to this question is ‘No’. The research may do thesesteps simultaneously and repeatedly. (Hoepfl, 1997; Mertler, 2006; Gough & Scott,2000)However, the most important thing to take into consideration before those stepsis developing quality research questions. Research questions reflect theresearcher’s ideas about “what I am looking for in the data?” (Foss & Waters, 2003)Thus, the specificity and validity of the research questions must be considered inadvance. For example, in order to probe students’ prior knowledge about metal, Iwill make a question for the pretest of the unit Metal, asking “What is the definitionof metal in terms of chemistry?” instead of “What is metal?” The question “What ismetal?” is too broad and ambiguous for the students to realize what they are asked.The answers to the question, thus, may be too wide and various to be categorizedinto a few groups. They could be a description of appearances, physical properties,chemical properties, and uses in everyday life. My imagination limits the possiblecategories for this question, but the students’ imaginations will have no limit in theresearch. In contrast, the other question, “What is the definition of metal in terms ofchemistry?” seems to be difficult for the students to answer in the pretest, and thusthey may generate only few answers. However, in the posttest, I expect thestudents to give me more specific and correct answers to the question, which is thesign of learning. That’s what I am looking for in my research. For the first step of the data analysis, the researcher has to read and rereadwriting down the emerging categories in a form of a paraphrase, phrase, heading orReview #2 – Data coding Lee 3/6label that describes what the respondents try to say and the researcher think ofimportant. (Foss & Waters, 2003; Mertler, 2006) This process is called data coding.Basically, data coding is the process of data reduction. (Mertler, 2006) Qualitativedata are made up of a wide variety of text passages or segments. In itself, it is hardto provide useful information to the readers and even to the researcher. It requiresthe researcher to reduce the volume of information collected in order to identify andorganize the data into important patterns and themes. (Mertler, 2006) Patterns arethe same or similar ideas or expressions in data. Themes may include knowledge,beliefs, experiences, or opinions that the respondent was trying to communicate inresponse to the researcher's questions. (CDC EZ-Text, 2000) Thus, the identificationof key themes and patterns depends on data coding process. After finding some categories