Analysis in Atlas

I'm in analysis mode. I've just completed the first stab at analysing all the fieldnotes I produced for one of my research sites. The process is ok, a bit tedious having to read off and stare at the computer monitor for most of the day. I'm still not sure how working in Atlas will help pull all the threads together - I think this is more a issue about my unfamiliarity with the software than me registering a lack of confidence in using the software for my analysis. Interestingly, the more I work with the coding process the more patterns start to come through. I remember thinking on Tuesday when I just started with the coding - "What the hell is this going to give me?" So I'm feeling more reassured about where I'm going even if it isn't clear exactly what the specific direction is just yet.

I think I mentioned before, that I was taking guidance from my applied linguists friend and using aspects of his methodology, namely to complete a small pilot, to work out or operationalize some of my coding categories . I think it was/is a useful strategy but I also have to acknowledge that there is just so much fuzziness in qualitative methodologies and my coding categories always seem to bleed into each other. But having a strict and thought through 'definition' of the many of the codes beforehand is helping me to be more discerning about my coding choices. My coding definitions are sharper and more consistently applied across my data set - so I can 'tell' the different between a literacy practice vs a textual practice. Of course the definitions are my creation but I'm just trying to be reliable in how I apply that choice across all my data examples. I know this is sounding a bit prescriptive and tending towards a positivist paradigm, but I think I'm just trying to ensure a higher level of reliability in my coding approach. And in a couple of months after I've trawled the research methodology literature I will be able to offer an more credible argument for why I'm doing my coding in this manner...Yay, something to look forward to.

For now, back to Atlas and some of the other data I collected...lets see what that exercise delivers.