The Story

To say that I am overwhelmed by the amount of data I have after just 7 interviews would be an understatement. I feel like I am swimming in a sea of very interesting and equally important data. As I read and re-read my transcriptions for the zillionth time, new ideas or themes seem to emerge. And I think I can accurately say that I am not very good at the coding process. Why, you may ask? As I begin to highlight a quote that someone says, I find myself continually struck by every word in the particular response. Then, I proceed to highlight the entire passage. 

Surely, I need to get better at discriminating which of the sentences in the passage in question carries the most meaning...but I continually find myself getting lost in the entire story of their experience. One of my colleagues has mentioned her commitment to finding the story through qualitative research. I don't think it was until now that I truly understood what that means. I think it does make it harder, as I am dealing with the stories of seven people--each of whom has rich, valuable, and telling experiences. 

Well, now I must return to the process of distilling those meaningful stories into meaningful themes. Back to coding I go...