Dave's Book: Chapter 8
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Chapter 8-- Story Reading through Analysis, Synthesis, and Interpretation
In her excellent review of qualitative inquiry and analysis, Renata Tesch (1990) reviewed 26 different approaches to qualitative research she identified in the literature. She organized these approaches around four research interests: exploration of characteristics of language, the discovery of regularities, the comprehension of the meaning of text or action, and reflection. She noted that although there is overlap among these approaches in terms of how the inquirer interprets or makes sense of information gathered, there is not a consensus on how to analyze, synthesize, and interpret information. In fact, as new assumptions about what knowledge is and how we learn are employed, as different kinds of questions are asked, as different purposes for doing inquiry evolve, and as different people participate as inquirers, more and more kinds of interpretation are developing. This fact can be discouraging if you were hoping to find the one right way to make sense of information you are gathering. But it is also very liberating to know that inquirers can come up with their own interpretive procedures to fit their particular study needs.

Another way to think about these issues is in terms of stories. Story-telling and story-hearing or story-reading are some of the most ancient of human activities. When someone is telling a story, they are interpretting or making meaning of some event, activity, or experience. The telling of a story involves "making sense" of experience and making sense could involve analysis, synthesis, and/or interpretation. These story-telling interpretive activities can take an infinity of forms. For example, a child sitting on the back rgw of a classroom with filthy clgthing, who is disruptive or seems depressed and is not involved in the class activities is telling her teacher a story about her background, needs, and challenges. Students tell stories about their interpretations of life, school, subject matter, etc. through their test performance, homework completion, social behavior, artistic expression, writing, the books they read, responses to questions, and on and on.

In Chapter One, Steve (the student who was expelled from the high school program) was telling his teachers and student teachers a story through his smoking behavior on the ski trip as well as through his comments to them in their office after the trip. Jimmy was telling Kyleen a story through all of his activities which she documented in the study reported in Appendix C. The first graders who were held back were trying to tell their stories to the administrators and teachers described by Judy in her report in Appendix E. Marné was trying to read stories of several students and herself as a journal-writing teacher in Appendix B. Gary was doing the same thing as a school superintendent by reading stories being lived out by teachers and administrators from his district in his report in Appendix F.

Thinking even more broadly, we find that living and all experience generally can be usefully thought of as interpretation. If I respond to people bruskly or kindly, I am expressing an interpretation of them and my relationships with them. If I stay in bed all day or get up and work hard when I have a cold, I am interpreting that malady differently. Almost anything one does or says or is can be considered an expression of meaning or point of view by the actor. We are telling our stories by our presence, our aura, our clothing, our physical stance, how we locate ourselves in a group, by our faces, by all that we are. If this is so, everyone is constantly telling stories or expressing interpretations of all their experiences. And anyone who is interested in hearing those stories has more than enough to listen for. Educators face many story tellers daily.
In a slightly more restricted sense, there are many different ways we actively or deliberately interpret experience "reflectively" or "thoughtfully" (as opposed to simply living out our interpretations of life's events). Some of these interpretations are done in relative solitude while others are interactive. Interactive interpretations can be with people we are close to or with relative strangers. Thinking about these deliberate interpretations as "readings" of the stories people are telling us through their lives or readings of our lived experience may open up some new ways of making sense of naturalistic inquiry activities. Some examples of deliberate forms of interpretation which allow the interpreter to get a new "reading" are:

* Letting an experience or idea "sink in" to our sub-conscious and seeing where it leads.
* Literally reading others' writings and letting their interpretations spark new connections in the reader.
* Writing (journals, memos, letters, poetry, fieldnotes, and others) helps the writer to clarify her or his thinking and perspective.
* Making summary statements about an experience, receiving critical feedback from others regarding those summaries, and defending the summaries with an open mind.
* Responding to a request to summarize the key learnings or insights obtained during a study.
* Therapeutic talking with a counselor, a friend, or a support group about experiences.
* Meditating in various forms (while running, dreaming, engaging in martial arts, practicing Zen, praying, and so on) allows the participant to step back from the experience and get a different reading.
* Using any of the common art forms (such as painting, drawing, dance, music, and story telling itself) can help the artist to "read" an experience in a different way, to interpret it.

 Educators who think of themselves primarily as learners are constantly seeking for better and better ways to read the stories others are telling through their lives. This is deliberate interpretation. Teachers face entire rooms full of students who are telling stories that may be very foreign to the teachers' experiences. They face the challenge of helping the students integrate parts of those stories into a coherent classroom story that everyone can share, but which does not threaten or destroy the story elements unique to each member of the class. And of course, teachers have their own stories to merge with the students' and class's stories. Administrators face the same challenge at building and institution levels. Part of the challenge of naturalistic inquiry and of education generally is to learn to read the stories others are telling, to understand them, to have compassion for them.

In a sense then, this whole book on naturalistic inquiry is about helping educators invite the pegple they work with and themselves to tell their stories more powerfully. It is also about helping educators find better ways to hear or "read" those stories and to share what they learn through those readings with people they want to help. Chapter Nine focuses on the sharing of story-readings. This chapter provides an opportunity to look in more depth at a few of the many ways of reading or interpreting people's stories to give you a sense of what is possible. You are invited to take this closer look by:

1. exploring how you are already interpreting or telling stories of your experience through the way you are living,

2. exploring how you are already reading or interpreting others' interpretations or stories, and

3. considering some additional ways you might read others' stories through naturalistic inquiry and various associated approaches to analysis, synthesis, and interpretation.


A Graduate Student Story

To do this, you are invited to read a story in Appendix G: An Example Study by a Graduate Student in education (another form of educator we have not visited yet) about a teacher. In this story, Rob Boody (1992) tells a "dissertation" story based on his "reading" of a story he interpreted Dave Jensen as telling through his practices as a high school teacher. Rob uses about 25 pages of a 159 page dissertation to tell the story in a familiar story form-- as a descriptive portrayal of Dave Jensen at work. Then he identifies six themes or patterns of interpretation he believes highlight Dave's work. One of those theme stories (6 pages worth) is included in Appendix G as part of Rob's story.

After reading this story, you will be invited to look more closely at three ways Rob used to interpret or "read" Dave Jensen's story: 1. Using an explicit interpretive stance through reference to the work of others, 2. Using an implicit interpretive stance through narrative description, and 3. Discovering the participants' interpretive stance by using processes such as Spradley's (1980) domain, taxonomic, and componential analyses.

Finally, you will be invited to look at your own work as an inquiring educator to examine how you tell stories of your experiences and how you read stories others are telling you of their experiences. You will then have a chance to expand your story reading skills through a naturalistic inquiry application. In Chapter Nine, you will have a chance to expand your story telling skills.

An Analysis

Although there are probably many more, there are at least three kinds of interpretation or story reading modes Rob or any naturalistic inquirer could use:

1. Exploring an experience with explicit attention to a particular interpretive stance, theory, or literature that is chosen as a touchstone for thinking about the experience,

2. Examining an experience as descriptively as possible while using, but leaving implicit, the interpretive stance, and

3. Examining an experience to discover the emic or folk interpretive stance of the participants. Rob appears to have tried to use all three of these approaches in his dissertation. Let's explore his story in terms of all three to clarify your thinking about these various interpretive approaches.

Explicit Interpretive Stance

Rob studied the literature on reflective teaching and synthesized it in Chapter Two of his dissertation. He used that literature in the generation of some of his themes in Chapter Four (the first of these was included in the excerpt from his study included in Appendix G of this book). This is a common approach inquirers use to interpret or read experiences they have-- they ask hgw their experience compares to the experiences of others as related in the literature and other outlets. Lou Smith (in Williams, 1981) uses the term, "foreshadowed problems" to represent issues and questions he brings from various sources to any new inquiry experience.

Many of the approaches to qualitative inquiry and analysis described by Tesch (1990) are built around particular theories, questions, and world views. These can serve as explicit interpretive stances for all kinds of inquiry, including naturalistic studies& For example, if Rob had begun his study with a particular interest in characteristics of language used by Dave and others in his school and what those characteristics could tell him about the school as a culture, he could have used the questions generated by ethnoscientists, structural ethnographers, symbolic interactionists, and ethnomethodologists to guide his inquiry explicitly. If he had been more interested in the discovery of regularities in terms of cultural or social patterns, Rob could have been guided by the work of holistic and educational ethnographers.

In fact, it seems that Rob was interested in the meaning of teacher reflection as manifest in the life of one teacher. The work of phenomenologists (searching for patterns or themes in a given phenomenon), life historians, and hermeneutisists (searching people's experiences as students of literature search texts) was useful to Rob in planning and conducting this study, as he indicated, "We saw that the notion of a reader's making of meaning wih a text is analogous to the notion that teacher research is the making of meaning with students." (p. 61)

You may find it useful to look at these categories of analysis Tesch (1990) has created to see if your particular interests, questions, and readings of experiences in your setting can be enhanced by the methodological work of others. You should also read the substantive literature associated with particular questions you have so see what others are asking and concluding relative to your particular questions. This is an ongoing part of naturalistic inquiry that continues throughout your life as a thoughtful, learning educator. Whatever you are reading, television shows you watch, lectures you hear, and many other sources of information can figure into your ongoing thinking, and thus into your reading of the experiences you and the people you work with are having. Connections you make between what you are learning from the literature and work of others to what you are experiencing in your educational inquiry setting may be formally addressed in reports. But it is more likely that you will make these connections on the run in your fieldnotes or journal. Anything you hear or think about can be relevant. But if you don't write the informatiof and your thoughts about it down, you might forget about them before they can guide your inquiry.

Implicit Interpretive Stance

In the excerpt in Appendix G, Rob spends nearly a sixth of his dissertation (25 pages) painting a picture or portrayal of the world Dave Jensen and he shared during this study. His rationale for sharing this story was that he wanted to establish a context for later discussion of what Rob called "Dave Jensen's reflections." He wanted to give his readers a chance to read the story of Dave Jensen without being too overwhelmed with Rob Boody's agenda. As Rob said, "This chapter is divided into two main parts. The first part is primarily descriptive, to give a feeling for how Dave Jensen teaches and how he thinks about teaching. This description is valuable in its own right. . . . even though [like a similar book on schooling] it presents little in the way of theory or explicit analysis." He goes on to point out that "these results are only part of what I recorded, which is in turn only part of what I saw, which is in turn only part of w`at was there to be seen [and] even what seems to only be description is also interpretation. There is no neutral or objective seeing, and an observer interprets a research situation by how he or she acts within the scene-- by attending to one thing instead of something else, by what he or she thinks, records, and feels-- as well as by later analytical processes." (p. 74)

Then Rob presents an account of Dave's teaching, his students' responses, Rob's interactions with him, Dave's thoughts about his teaching, and so on. In some ways, this narrative accouft seems like a story with no interpretive stance. The reader can almost see Dave teaching and can certainly hear his voice and the voice of the students, in addition to hearing Rob's voice as the story teller. However, it is equally obvious that Rob used an interpretive stance in choosing what parts of the story to tell. In fact, he was using this story telling opportunity to read the story of Dave Jensen he had been experiencing for nearly two years, in a particular way, a way related to Rob's overall questions about Dave as a reflective teacher.

The literature on narrative and storytelling is extensive. One useful resource that applies these concepts directly to improving teaching is Connelly and Clandindin's (1988) Teachers as curriculum planners: narratives of experience . As Elliot Eisner says in the foreward to this book, the authors "provided a narrative built upon the premise that experience is the primary agency of education." (p. ix) He goes on to explain that "experience is slippery; it is difficult to operationalize; it eludes factual descriptions of manifest behavior. Experience is what people undergo, the kinds of meanings they construe as they teach and learn, and the personal ways in which they interpret the worlds in which they live. Such aspects of life are difficult to relegate to a technology of standardized observation schedules or behavioral measures, yet what people experience is schools is central to any effort to understand what schools mean to those who spend a major portion of their lives there." (p. ix) Eisner applauds Connelly and Clandindin for helping teachers convey their experiences and the experiences of their students through stories by stating, "this book provides us with a reminder that it is more important to understand what people experience than to focus simply on what they do . We need not only to see what we look at, we also need to interpret it. This interpretation requires a willingness to listen deeply to what people have to say, to see beyond what they do in order to grasp the meanings that their doings have for them. One of the strongest aspects of Teachers as Curriculum Planners is the use of teacher narratives. The metaphgrs by which teachers live, the way they construe their work, and the stories they recount, tell us more profoundly about what is going on in their lives as professionals than any measured behavior is likely to reveal. One must be willing to understand by participating sympathetically in the stories and in the lives of those who tell them. One must be willing to vicariously participate in scenes that one cannot enter into directly. The use of narratives, and the epistemological frameworks through which these narratives embody and convey meaning, not only provides an important way to think about curriculum and teaching, but also is vital to understanding what goes on at school." (pp. x-xi)

Connelly and Clandindin have invited teachers and others involved in creating curriculum and learning experiences to listen to stories told by others who have been doing the same things and to stories from their students. These stories provide a rich rendition of the tellers' experiences. They are interpretations of their experiences which can influence the readers as no other kind of story can. The naturalistic approach tg "reading" people's stories is clearly in line with their theme. As an inquirying educator, you have many opportunities to invite people around you to tell you stories of their lives in narrative form and to listen to those stories or "read" them. Doing so will allow you to get deeper into the meanings people have for what they are experiencing.

Discovering the Participants' Interpretive Stances

Rob read Dave's stories using an implied interpretive stance by observing him, by listening to him tell stories about his past and current experience, by asking him questions based on what he saw and heard. Rob also asked questions based upon his explicit interpretational stance as set forth in the literature he was reading. But in addition to these ways of focusing on Rob's interpretive stances, he also made some attempt to discover Dave's interpretive stance without forcing his observations through his own interpretive screens. He used a procedure proposed by Spradley (1979, 1980) to look at Dave's language, his activities, and other dimensions of his experience afd to dissect that experience into components that revealed Dave's meanings and interpretations atheoretically. Although Rob is not explicit in his dissertation about how he applied Spradley's procedures, we can examine a part of the story he tells (the one in Appendix G) and present those procedures for illustrative purposes in this Chapter.

In addition to Spradley, several other authors provide suggestions for mapping out various dimensions of people's experiences to discover their interpretive stances without imposing an a priori interpretive framework. Miles and Huberman (1984) identify a host of ideas for visually illustrating interpretive patterns in qualitative descriptions of people and their activities and settings. Strauss (1987) provides several excellent examples of ways to interpret participants' interpretive stances through careful analysis of their behaviors.

Spradley's Approach to Interpretation

The remainder of this chapter will be spent looking closely at the process Spradley recommends because it is fairly comprehensive and also relatively easy to understand. The reader is cautioned though against thinking that all naturalistic inquiry should use Spradley's processes. They simply provide a useful place to start in discovering ways to "read" stories people are telling by their lived experiences.

Spradley identifies several analytic steps which follow a particular sequence but should be repeated many times during the course of a study. These steps are discussed and illustrated from Rob's study in the remainder of this chapter:

  1. Making domain analyses
  2. Making focused inquiries
  3. Making taxonomic analyses
  4. Making selected inquiries
  5. Making componential analyses

Overview . Domain analysis is a process for reviewing fieldnotes containing the inquirer's summary of observations, interviews, document reviews, and inquirer thinking to discover the domains of meaning associated with the lives of people being studied and specific details of those lives categorized within those domains (included terms). Focused observations are subsequent visits to the fieldnotes and/gr to the field of inquiry itself to expand the list of details or included terms associated with domains selected for further scrutiny. Taxonomic analysis is a search for ways included terms within selected domains may be organized. Selected observations are subsequent visits to the fieldnotes and/or to the field of inquiry to expand and verify the taxonomic analsis. Componential analysis is a search for ways of distinguishing among the included terms in each selected domain, as a means of understanding why participants distinguish among the terms. The rest of the discussion of Spradley's analysis process will use examples from Rob's dissertation excerpt in Appendix G.

Domain analysis . Domains are made up of three elements (examples are taken from an analysis of the story beginning on page 75 of Rob's study):

a. a cover term or name for the domain (e.g., student roles, Dave's role, see page 76)

b. several included terms or names for all the smaller categories inside the domain (e.g., summarizer, predictor, clarifier, queestion-asker, connector, language appreciator, and teacher are all included under the cover term "student roles", see page 76), and

c. a semantic relationship linking the cover and included terms (e.g., "is a kind of" is the semantic relationship that links the cover term "student roles" with the included terms listed above).

There are six steps in making a domain analysis, which will be followed to illustrate the generation of the example presented above.

a. Step one: Select a single semantic relationshap to start with. There are nine "universal semantic relationships" which Spradley has found useful in a wide variety of studies. He suggests the first and seventh in the list below may be the best for beginners. But all of them should be useful in most studies. You should probably try to find at least one example of each kind in your fieldnotes. X stands for the included terms and Y stands for the cover terms in each form:

Semantic
Relationship Form Examples from Rob's study (page #'s)

1.Strict ifclusion X is a kind of Y A summarizer (is a kind of) student role (76)
2.Spatial X is a place in Y Dave's office (is a place in) the school (79) X is a part of Y Dave's room (is a part of) the school (90)
3.Cause-effect X is a result of Y Dave's change to whole language teaching (is a result of) his reflections on teaching (87)
4.Rationale X is a reason for doing Y Not feeling he is meeting his goals of helping readers (is a reason for) Dave to search for a better way to teach (89)
5.Location-for-action X is a place for doing Y Dave's room (is a place for) eating lunch (90)
6.Function X is used for Y A loud, forceful voice (is used for) helping students hear while Dave reads and add drama to pull in students who don't like to read and are not used to listening (82)
7.Means-end X is a way to do Y Retelling a story (is a way to) be a Summarizer (77)
8.Sequence X is a step (stage) in Y Reading passages aloud (is a stage in) studying a piece of literature as a class (77)
9.Attribution X is an attribute One semester in length (is an attribute of)
(characteristic) of Y Dave's reading classes (79)

b. Step two: Prepare a domain analysis worksheet like the one below for each cover term. Although you may prefer to use the margins of your fieldnotes for the domain analysis activities to follow, using the worksheet while first learning to identify domains is helpful. It is simply a way to visually summarize the semantic relationship you selected in step one along with all the included and cover terms you are going to find for that relationship in your fieldnotes.

DOMAIN ANALYSIS WORKSHEET

Semantic Relationship: Strict Inclusion
Form: X (is a kind of) Y
Example: An oak (is a kind of) tree
----------------------------------------------------------------
Included terms Semantic Cover
Relationship Term



c. Step three: Select a sample of fieldnote entries from your descriptive fieldnotes generated to date. Although you will eventually go through all your fieldnotes many times, looking for domains, it is easiest to start with just a short sample. For this example, the first paragraph on page 76 is the sample.

d. Step four: Search for possible cover terms and included terms that fit the semantic relationship from the sample of fieldnotes entries and write them onto the domain analysis worksheet. This requires a special kind of reading while asking which of the words could be a kind of something or a part of something or a reason for doing something or a way to do something, etc. The number of included terms you find for each cover term is not important, as long as you can identify domains with the three parts. The resulting worksheet for this example using entries on page 76 looks like this:

DOMAIN ANALYSIS WORKSHEET

Semantic Relationship: Strict Inclusion
Form: X (is a kind of) Y
Example: An oak (is a kind of) tree
--------------------------------------------------------%-------
Included terms Semantic Cover
Relationship Term

Summarizer Predictor
Clarifier Question-asker
Connector Teacher is a kind of Student role
Language appreciator ______________

e. Step five: Repeat the search for domains using all the different semantic relationships listed earlier following the process described in step four. Continue until you have several domaan worksheets filled out with domains identified (there is no limit to the number that you could identify if you have time to work on these).

f. Step six: Make a list of all identified domains which are included on the worksheets. All the domains for a given semantic relationship should be listed together so you have a list of kinds of Y (e.g., kinds of groups, attitudes, relationships, etc.), a list of ways to do Y (e.g., ways to ask questions, to teach children, etc.) and so on. This will be a summary of the categoraes you have identified from the sample of fieldnotes and will provide an initial overview of the situation you are studying. A beginning list from the analysis of Rob's story follows:

a. X is a kind of Y (list the Y's)
kinds of participants
kinds of things the participants use
kinds of objects in the room
kinds of sounds
kinds of activities in which participants engage
kinds of relationships among participants
kinds of feelings participants demonstrate
kinds of goals participants have
kinds of events that take place
kinds of comments participants make
kinds of questions participants ask
etc.

b. X is a way to do Y (list of Y's)
ways to respond to students' questions
ways to ask questions
ways to comment
ways to support the students
ways to give feedback to the students
ways to spend class time
ways to express emotions
ways to invite students to read
etc.

c. And so on-- using the nine semantic relationships suggested by Spradley. The domains identified are not all presented here for the sake of brevity.

Focused inquiry. The results of the domain analyses is a general idea of possible areas for further research through focused inquiry into the identified domains and an overview of the total situation being studied from the interpretive framework of the participants, including the inquirer. It would be possible to use this analysis to write a short report or share an oral report of what you are learning based on some subset of the identified domains, without continuing the inquiry with a narrower focus. However, such analyses are more often used repeatedly throughout a study as new fieldnotes are generated to identify new areas for inquiry and to adjust the growing holistic picture of the situation being studied.

Focused inquiry is used to ask structural questions about additional included terms to add into the domains selected for more intensive focus. The domains you select for this focused attention can be of any type. Spradley suggests that you select these domains based on your interests, input from the people you are studying (qour students, faculty, etc.), the literature, your theories, and so on. Given the claim made in this book that Spradley's analysis process is helpful in examining an experience to discover the emic or folk interpretive stance of the participants, input from them should be very influential in selecting your focus. But the important thing to remember is to keep a record in your audit trail and fieldnotes about how you decide upon your focus. By repeatedly asking the same structural questions over and over (both in re-reading existing fieldnotes and while gathering new information), you will discover an extended list of included terms, beyond the initial list identified in the original domain analysis.

For example, in the study of Rob's story, you can see that the list of student roles from page 76 is rather restricted to the "reciprocal reading" activity in which the class was engaged. But both Rob and Dave agreed that other student roles were important to identify if they were going to find better ways to invite students to read. A focused inquiry while re-reading the entire story in Appendix G, intended to expand the included terms in this domain through the asking of the structural question, "What other roles do students play in Dave's classes?" yielded the following expanded domain worksheet (page numbers where evidence for these terms was found are included in parentheses, new included terms are in boldface):

DOMAIN ANALYSIS WORKSHEET

Semantic Relationship: Strict Inclusion
Form: X (is a kind of) Y
Example: An oak (is a kind of) tree
----------------------------------------------------------------
Ancluded terms Semantic Cover
Relationship Term

Summarizer (76) Predictor (76)
Clarifier (76) Question-asker (76)
Connector (76) Teacher (76) is a kind of Student role
Writer (82) Language appreciator (76)
Meaning maker(84) Discusser (79)
Thinker (82) Reluctant reader (80)
Activity chooser (79) Listener (82)


Taxonomic analysis. Once a focus on one or a few related domains has been selected and focused inquiries have been conducted to expand and clarify the included terms in those specific domains, taxonomic analysis is used to discover if and how the included terms are systematically organized or related within a domain (or how several domains are related within a larger covering domain). This analysis activity creates a "taxonomy" which summarizes the relationships among all the included terms inside a given domain. It reveals subsets of the domain and the ways they are related to the whole domain. It may also reveal multiple levels of subsets (subsets of included terms).

Although experienced naturalistic inquirers are likely to conduct taxonomic analysis as an extension of domain analysis in a single process, by following the steps presented below, the beginning inquirer can develop these skills systematically.

Step 1. Select a domain for taxonomic analysis
This should be one of the domains you selected in previous assignments for domain analysis and focused inquiry. It should also be one of the domains for which you have the most information, although you will probably discover even more included terms for the domain during the taxonomic analysis. For the sake of the example begun above, we will continue to use the domain cover term: Student roles.

Step 2. Look for similarities based on the same semantic relationship used in the domain

This involves looking at the included terms in the selected domain to see if any of them are similar enough that they can be grouped together as items in a subset of a more inclusive term. For example, the seven original roles identified on page 76 are all similar in the sense that they were assigned to the students as part of the "reciprocal reading" activity in which the class was engaged. In the taxonomy, they could be organized under subset term, "teacher assigned roles." In addition, several of the other terms reflect expectations Dave had for the students in comments he made to them while conducting the class. Terms such as writer, meaning maker, thinker, discusser, and listener could be organized under the subset term, "teacher expected roles." The included term, "activity chooser" reflects the students' spontaneous response when Dave asked if they want to move to discussion or continue listening to him read. This term seems to be unique among the terms identified so far; but other related terms may be identified as the analysis continues and they could be grouped under the subset term, "spontaneous roles." The term "reluctant reader" is a term Rob uses to categorize several of the students he has seen in Dave's classes. It isn't so much a classroom role as a more permanent personality role. Other personality roles may show up and they could be grouped with this one using the subset term, "Personality roles."


Step 3. Look for additional included terms

This step is almost identical to one used during focused inquiry. Structural questions were applied there to identify as many included terms for a given domain as possible. In this step, structural questions are asked for each included term to discover additional included terms which are subsets of the first level of included terms. For example, the first level included term "reluctant reader" actually consists of four subset terms according to the information on page 80 of Rob's story. The structural question "What are all the kinds of reluctant readers?" could be used in this step to expand the list of included terms under that category to include: a. those who read well but don't read, b. those who read poorly and don't read, c. those who read well and do read, and d. those who read poorly but do read.
Step 4. Search for larger, more inclusive domains that might include as a subset the domain you are analyzing

This step involves expansion rather than focus; yet it reveals meaning by searching for relationships between the domain you have selected for focus and other domains. It consists of asking a structural question an reverse: Is this domain a subset of something else? For example, for the domain "Student roles," you might ask, "Is the student roles domain a kind of something else?" A possible answer might be "classroom participant roles" which include the teacher's roles, the graduate student's roles, and so on. In turn, all these roles might be considered part of an even more inclusive "super domain" such as "learner roles." Combined with the subsets discovered in step three above, the inclusive domains identified here can form part of a large organizational understanding of the relationships among the meanings participants in this setting assign to their experiences.

Step 5. Construct a tentative taxonomy

The taxonomy consists of a graphic representation of the relationships among the domains and their subsets of included terms at all identified levels. The tentative taxonomy coming from the analysis of Rob's story discussed in steps 1-4 above might look something like this:

I. Learner roles
A. Teacher roles
B. Graduate student roles
C. Student roles
Step 6. Make focused inquiries to check out the adequacy of your analysis

Of course, doing the taxonomic analysis described above will raise new questions about the social situation you are studying because you will be trying to find relationships you never even thought about before. So during the analysis steps, plan to return to the field (or at least to your full set of fieldnotes) several times to collect more information (e.g., are there other kinds of "student roles" that you missed during earlier observations? What should be included in the "spontaneous roles" included term which you just discovered besides "activity chooser"? What other "personality roles" are there besides these "reluctant reader" roles? What other "teacher expected roles" are there?). As a result of searching for answers to these questions in this step, the taxonomy will be expanded into the form discussed in the next step. These kinds of focused questions are at the heart of Spradley's process for "reading" the experiences of participants and the discovery of their interpretive stances.

Step 7. Construct a completed taxonomy

Actually, all taxonomies are only approximations of the reality you study. So there is really no such thing as a "complete" taxonomy. However, when you have repeated steps 1-6 a few times for a few selected domains and no longer discover new included terms or relations between terms or between domains, it is time to complete this analysis stage by formalizing the taxonomy using any of several types of figures and a written explanation for the figure. For example, the outline form used below may not seem as helpful to you as a more graphic figure that includes venn diagrams, or at least lines connecting the various parts of the taxonomy. Feel free to draw pictures, create matrices, or do whatever works for you to capture the summary of your developing taxonomy. All of this analysis information should be appropriately summarized in your fieldnotes and referenced in your audit trail too. Adthough the following is not a "complete" taxonomy, it is presented to illustrate how the use of focused inquiry and structural questions in step 6 can expand the tentative taxonomy presented in step 5. Page numbers for terms taken from the text are in parentheses.

I. Learner roles
A. Teacher roles
B. Graduate student roles
C. Student roles
Selected inquiry. Data collection and analysis activities discussed earlier (descriptive observations, domain analysis, focused inquiries, taxonomic analysis) summarized ways to understand a social setting holistically while focusing on certain dimensions for deeper understanding. This section of the chapter discusses how selected inuiry is used to deepen that focus even more through the asking of contrast questions. Descriptive questions provide guidance for conducting a general descriptive overview4/CITE> of domains within a study. Structural questions guide inquiry into the relationships among included terms within domains selected for focused attention. And contrast questions guide inquiry into the similarities and differences that exist among the terms in each domain (at all levels-- not just among the first level included terms under a given domain cover term but also among the subsets of included terms within included terms, as will be demonstrated below. Understanding participants' meafings requires all three types of information: holistic descriptions, clarified relationships among the parts, and clarified similarities and differences between the parts within domains.

Contrast questions ask, "How are all these things similar to and different from each other?" The answers to these questions constitute dimensions of contrast which reveal facets of participants' interpretive stance and meanings and provide a basis for asking more contrast questions during reviews of fieldnotes or while conducting more selected inquiries. Asking and answering these questions nearly always helps the researcher see that there is much more information to collect from the field.

Spradley identifies three basic types of contrast questions which yield dimensions of contrast:

a. Dyadic contrast questions which compare two members (included terms or subsets of terms within included terms) of a single domain by asking, "In what ways are these two things similar and different?" For example, in the domain "Student roles," one might ask, "What are the differences between the included terms 'teacher assigned roles' and 'teacher expected roles'?" There are several possible answers to this question which constitute possible dimensions of contrast for interpreting students' experiences.

For example, while the two terms are obviously similar in the sense that the expectations and the assignments come from the teacher to the students, the teacher assigned roles are temporary while teacher expected roles are permanent . Also, teacher assigned roles apply to specific students in those particular roles while teacher expected roles are expected of all students . Another dimension of contrast that is revealed by asking this contrast question is the fact that students can be held immediately accountable for filling their assigned roles while they may or may not ever be held accountable by the teacher for filling the expected roles. Many other dimensions of contrast could be added to these three by continuing to ask this dyadic contrast question regarding these two included terms.

b. Triadic contrast questions in which the researcher looks at three included terms within a domain at once (or among subsets of included terms) and asks, "Which two are most alike in some way, but different from the third?" By asking this contrast question many times about all the terms previously identified in a domain (and even among domains within a super domain), the inquirer can discover both similarities and differences at the same time.

For example, one of the included terms in the domain of student roles is "teac`er expected roles." Within that included term, one of the roles is "thinker." Within that role, three kinds of thinking were identifed in Rob's story: 1) thinking on paper, 2) thinking of a substitute word, and 3) thinking about the literature the teacher is going to read. By asking the triadic contrast question, "Which two of these kinds of thinking are most alike in some way, but different from the third?" you might come up with dimensions of contrast such as: 1. the use of paper versus thinking in one's head (identified by noting that the first way of thinking is different from the second two on this dimension), or 2. thinking about a specific issue versus thinking generally (identified by noting that the second kind of thinking-- about a specific word, is different from the first and third kinds of thinking, on this dimension). These similarities and differences reveal some of the characteristics of thinking and the meaning behind students' behaviors and the teacher's expectations.

c. Card-sorting contrast questions allow the informant or the inquirer to compare all the identified terms (included terms and their subset terms) of a large domain to each other to identify differences and similarities. Each term is written on a card and then the person asking the contrast questions reads through the cards asking themselves, "Are there any differences among these things?" If the items do not seem different in any way, they are placed in a single pile. When the person doing the sorting comes to the first item that appears different for any reason at all, they place that card in a new pile. Now with two piles, the sorter continues to sort the cards until they find one that does not fit in either of the piles; then they start a third pile, and so on until all the cards are sorted into piles. All the items within a pile are considered to be similar. Cards in different piles contrast with one another. The piles constitute dimensions of contrast which the inquirer attempts to name and describe. Illustrating this use of contrast questions here is too complex; but you should try it with your own project.

It is possible that even after searching your fieldfotes using contrast questions, you will not identify any dimensions of contrast. However, it is likely that you will have identified domains and categories of included terms within those domains. By returning to the field and using selective observations and interviews, you should begin to identify those differences. Once you have discovered one or two differences, you may still need to discover more; continued use of contrast questions while reviewing fieldnotes and during selective inquiry should help you do this. Once you have discovered a dimension of contrast that applies to two or more terms in a domain, you may still want to find out if it applies to the other members of that domain. Again, this may involve more selected observations and interviews in addition to reviewing fieldnotes with these contrast questions in mind.

The following steps should guide you in making selected inquiries:

Step 1. Select one or more domains of interest from among those already used for focused observations and taxonomic analysis.

For the example used so far, that is the domain of "student roles."

Step 2. While reviewing the elements of the selected domain(s), write out several contrast questions (dyadic and triadic) which juxtapose those elements

For example, "What are the differences between the included terms 'teacher assigned roles' and 'teacher expected roles'?" or "Which two of these kinds of thinking are most alike in some way, but different from the third?" were contrast questions illustrated earlier.

 Step 3. Review your fieldnotes, asking the many contrast questions you have identified and writing your tentative answers into another section of the fieldnotes.

Again, the example of tentative answers to these questions given above is illustrative.

Step 4. Write each of the terms in the domain on separate cards or sheets of paper and conduct a card-sorting contrast exercise, again writing the results of this analysis into your fieldnotes.

Step 5. Return to the field setting in which you are conducting your study and conduct selective inquiries to answer any of the contrast questions you could not answer with fieldnotes you already had collected. Look for additional differences among domain terms.
Componential analysis. Previous chapters and sections of this chapter have discussed several ways to gather and organize data during a naturalistic study. Domain analysis helps researchers discover patterns in the descriptive detail of fieldnotes; taxonomic analysis organizes elements in domains into cohesive structures, which are revealed through focused inquiries. Selective inquiries take another step by identifying contrasts and similarities among elements in the domains. This section of the chapter introduces componential analysis as a way to organize and represent these newly discovered contrasts to help you as an inquirer take a better "reading" of the experiences of people in your inquiry setting and the interpretations and meanings they associate with their experiences.

People's interpretations and meanings are associated with domains, included terms, dimensions of contrast, taxonomies, etc. because these analytic categories help the inquirer distinguish among examples from various categories. For example, clarifying the differences between teacher assigned and teacher expected student roles helps the inquirer understand the experiences of both the students and the teacher in that setting much better. How the students respond to those roles will make more sense to the inquirer with this understanding.

Componential analysis includes the entire process of searching for damensions of contrast as described above, entering this information into a chart Spradley calls a paradigm chart and then verifying the accuracy of these analyses through further data gathering in the field. The paradigm chart organizes the categories of a domain with their attributes displayed across several dimensions of contrast as illustrated in figures below (adapted from Spradley):

Features of a paradigm chart

Domain name Dimensions of Contrast
 and categories: I II III
Domain or included term Attribute 1 Attribute 2 Attribute 3
Domain or included term Attribute 1 Attribute 2 Attribute 3 Domain or included term Attribute 1 Attribute 2 Attribute 3
Etc.

In a paradigm chart, the items in the rows associated with a given domain or included term are the attributes associated with that category. The columns represent the dimensions along which the attributes of the categories contrast with one another. This tool can be used to analyze any domains discovered in a naturalistic study.

There are eight basic steps doing a componential analysis:

Step 1. Select a domain for analysis

This may consist of any domain for which you have conducted selective inquiry and for which you have some identified contrasts. However, Spradley recommends that to learn to use componential analysis, one ought to start with a domain consisting of fewer than ten included terms. As before, the domain used for illustration here is "student roles."

Step 2. Inventory all contrasts previously discovered

During earlier analysis and through the use of contrast questions and selective inquiries, many statements of contrasts and dimensions of contrast should have been recorded in your fieldnotes. Spradley suggests each of these statements, for the selected domain, be written onto separate sheets of paper to compile a list of contrasts. This could also be done very efficiently with a computer word processing program. Examples from Rob's study include:

  1. Teacher assigned roles are temporary while teacher expected roles are permanent (a dyadic contrast).

  2. Teacher assigned roles apply to specific students in those particular roles while teacher expected roles are expected of all students (a dyadic contrast).

  3. Students can be held immediately accountable for filling their assigned roles while they may or may not ever be held accountable by the teacher for filling the expected roles (a dyadic contrast).

  4. Student thinking roles vary in whether they use paper and writing versus thinking in their head (a triadic contrast)

  5. Student thinking roles vary in whether they are hinking about a specific issue versus thinking generally (a triadic contrast).

Step 3. Prepare a paradigm worksheet
A paradigm worksheet is a large sheet of paper (or computer spread sheet) with an empty paradigm chart, except for the domain categories which are listed down the left hand column as shown in the Figure below.

Domain Categories: Dimensions of Contrast
 "Student Roles" I II III IV
1. teacher assigned roles
a. reciprocal reading activity roles
2. teacher expected roles
a. writer (p82)
3. spontaneous roles
a. activity chooser (p79)
4. personality roles
a. reluctant reader roles (p80)
Step 4. Identify dimensions of contrast that have binary values
A simple way to identify dimensions of contrast for the columns in the paradigm worksheet is to use dichotomies or binary values. For each category, the contrasts identified in step 2 can be restated so the category is either characterized by that contrast or it is not. For example, either a student role is permanent or it is not. Likewise, students may be held accountable for filling a role or not. The worksheet presented in step 3 is expanded during this step to include a variety of dimensions of contrast with "yes" or "no" in the intersecting cells as shown in the Figure below. Question marks (?) are inserted if more information is needed or a simple yes or no is overly simplistic (a shorter set of domain categories is used to save space):

Domain Categories: Dimensions of Contrast
 "Student Roles" Permanent? Temporary? Accountable?
1. teacher assigned roles N Y Y
a. reciprocal reading activity roles N Y Y
b. Switch roles regularly (p78) N Y Y
c. Alternative roles being considered (p79) N Y ?
2. teacher expected roles Y N ?
a. writer (p82) Y N Y
b. meaning maker (p84) Y N N
c. thinker (p82) Y N ?
3. spontaneous roles N Y N

Step 5. Combine closely related dimensions of contrast into ones that have multiple values
Step four was a simple way to begin identifying dimensions of contrast and to classify domain category attributes. However, binary dimensions of contrast can almost always be combined because they are usually related. This combination allows many more dimensions of contrast to be added to the growing paradigm worksheet. The simpler example presented in step four would be modified to look somethifg like the paradigm worksheet in the Figure below:

Domain Categories: Dimensions of Contrast
 "Student Roles" Permanence of Role? Accountable?
1. teacher assigned roles Temporary Y
a. reciprocal reading activity roles Temporary Y
b. Switch roles regularly (p78) Temporary Y
c. Alternative roles being considered (p79) Temporary ?
2. teacher expected roles Permanent ?
a. writer (p82) Permanent Y
b. meaning maker (p84) Permanent N
c. thinker (p82) Permanent ?
3. spontaneous roles Temporary N

Step 6. Prepare contrast questions for missing attributes

Paradigm worksheets quickly reveal the kinds of information one still needs to collect by graphically displaying incomplete dimensions of contrast (showing you which domain categories have incomplete attribute descriptions!. Although the example presented above is fairly simple and all the cells are filled, it would be helpful to get more information about the cells with question marks still in them. Contrast questions could be identified to guide additional data gathering as described in step seven below. For example, one might ask, "Are there some student roles being considered for which students would be accountable and others for which they would not?" Or "What are the circumstances under which students would be accountable?"

Step 7. Conduct selective inquiries to discover missing information.

As suggested in step six, the paradigm worksheet should identify areas for further fieldwork to answer the additional contrast questions. Spradley warns that few studies will answer all questions; however, the researcher will have a much more complete understanding of the domain he or she is studying by following this process, even if it is not complete.

Step 8. Prepare a "complete" paradigm.

After returning to the field and revising the paradigm worksheet with new information as many times as the project requires (the researcher must decide how often this will be in terms of inquiry objectives, resources, and so on), a final paradigm chart is generated for each selected focus domain. Such charts can be presented in the final report with discussion of selected attributes and relationships. For example, the evolving chart illustrated above might now look like this (again, only showing part of the entire chart given space limitations):

Domain Categories: Dimensions of Contrast
 "Student Roles" Permanence of Role? Accountable?
1. teacher assigned roles Temporary Y
a. reciprocal reading activity roles Temporary Y
b. Switch roles regularly (p78) Temporary Y
c. Alternative roles being considered (p79) Temporary N
2. teacher expected roles Permanent Variably
a. writer (p82) Permanent Y
b. meaning maker (p84) Permanent N
c. thinker (p82) Permanent Both
3. spontaneous roles Temporary N

Synthesis. In addition to these "analytic" approaches to discovering the interpretive stances of the people you study, Spradley and others suggest that you can look across your fieldnotes for broad themes. Spradley identifies several possible "universal themes" to consider; but these are couched in terms of theories and constructs used by anthropologists. Rather than restrict yourself to his categories, you should stand back from your analysis and think about synthesizing your experiences from time to time in your own words and concepts or in the words of the students, staff, and others you are working with in your inquiry. Look for patterns that speak for themselves. You may think there is too much detail to ever pull it all together. Perhaps you should only pull parts of it together. But let these patterns emerge from the experiences you have had and that you have documented from the lives of others.

In addition to these "skimming of the cream" kinds of syntheses which don't dwell on the details, you shoudd draw upon the results of the various forms of analysis to "tell a story" of your readings of the stories people in your study have told you. This will be the focus of Chapter 9.


Additional Readings
 Boody, R. M, (1992). An examination of the philosophical grounding of teacher reflection and one teacher's experience, Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT.

Connelly, F. M. and Clandindin, D. J. (1988). Teachers as curriculum planners: narratives of experience , New York: Teachers College.

Miles, M. and Huberman, M. (1984). Qualitative data analysis , Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Tesch, R. (1990). Qualitative research: analysis types and software tools. New York: Falmer.

Spradley, J. P. (1979). The Ethnographic Interview , Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

Spradley, J. P. (1980). Participant Observation , Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

Strauss, A. L. (1987). Qualitative analysis for social scientists , New York: Cambridge Ufiversity Press

Williams, D. D. (1981). Understanding the work of naturalistic researchers, Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO.
Questions for Consideration
These questions are not refined at all-- just a bunch of possible ones that could be asked right now. I plan to refine these as we modify the chapter itself.

 1. When should analysis begin in a naturalistic inquiry? Why?

2. What is afalysis in the naturalistic sense?

4. What is "meaning" and why is it so important in naturalistic inquiry?

5. How can you get at or understand meaning?

6. What is a domain?

7. What is domain analysis?

8. What are the differences between domain, cover term, included terms, and semantic relationship?

10. What are the steps in doing a domain analysis?

11. Why is domain analysis so important?

12. How does domain analysis build on other naturalistic ifquiry activities?

13. What other types of analysis and collection activities should be used to follow up on a domain analysis?

14. When is it better to conduct a surface or holistic naturalistic inquiry without going into any focused domains more deeply?

15. When is it more appropriate to narrow the investigation to a few selected domains for a focused in-depth investigation?

16. When is it appropriate to do both (holistic and in-depth)?

17. How can one do both when nearly all social situations are very complex?

18. How is a structural question different from a descriptive one?

19. Why does Spradley suggest you should continue making descriptive observations while you make focused observations?

20. Why should the same structural question be repeated many times during focused observations?

21. What is a taxonomy?

22. What is taxonomic analysis?

23. How does taxonomic analysis help naturalistic inquirers discover meaning in human activities?

24. Why does taxonomic analysis follow domain analysis?

25. How many levels should a taxonomy have?

26. How might folk terms and analytic terms be used in a taxonomy?

27. Why should the naturalistic researcher search for larger, more inclusive domains as well as for additional included terms during a taxonomic analysis?

28. When should focused and descriptive observations be done in relation to domain and taxonomic analyses?

29. How can focused observations be used to "check out" tentative taxonomies?

30. For how many domains should taxonomic analyses be conducted in a single study?

31. When is a box diagram appropriate to use for a taxonomy? A lines and nodes diagram? An outline diagram?

32. How do you plan to conduct taxonomic analysis in your own project?

33. What are contrast questions?

34. How do contrast questions relate to descriptive and structural questions?

35. How do contrast questions help naturalistic inquirers understand cultural meaning?

36. What is a dyadic contrast question?

37. What is a triadic contrast question?

38. What is a card-sorting contrast questign?

39. What are dimensions of contrast?

40. What are selective observations?

41. How do selective observations relate to descriptive and focused observations?

42. How would you conduct selective observations?

43. How would you use selective observations to ask contrast questions?

44. How would you use interviews to ask contrast questions?

45. What is componential analysis?

46. How does componential analysis relate to domain analysis and taxonomic analysis?

47. How does componential afalysis relate to the three types of observation: descriptive, focused, and selective?

48. How do "domain categories", "attributes", and "dimensions of contrast" relate to one another?

49. How can understanding categories, attributes, and contrasts help a naturalistic inquirer understand the meaning behind people's actions, settings, feelings, objects, and so on?

50. How can a paradigm chart help a naturalistic inquirer analyze a cultural setting?

51. What steps wall you follow in conducting a cgmponential analysis of data in your own naturalistic project?

52. How will the steps identified above fit with the other steps you are following in the total project?

Suggested Activities

1. Try out the Spradley analysis process on your fieldnotes by doing the following:

a. Using the fieldnotes collected to date, conduct a small domain analysis of a few of your expanded fieldnotes, using the steps presented in this chapter.

b. Then, eake a summary of 10-15 domains adentified through the domain analysis and review it to ascertain possible domains for further research.

c. Select one or two domains for a focused inquiry. Identify a structural question appropriate for each selected domain. Explain in you audit trail how you made these focusing decisions.

d. Conduct another period of data collection in which you ask the structural questions and generate additional included terms to add to the growing list of terms included in the selected focus domains for your study.

e. Conduct a taxonomic analysis on one or more domains (identified during the earlier domain analysis and selected for focus), following the steps outlined in this chapter.

f. Carry out another period of participant observation using both descriptive and focused observations, to check out the taxonomic analysis.

g. Prepare a relatively complete taxonomic diagram of one or more domains.

h. After studying the materials in this chapter and the associated readings, you should select one or more domains from those identified and focused on in earlier assignments and ask yourself contrast questions to discover dimensions of contrast in these domains. You should review your fieldnotes to answer these questions with all the information gathered to date.

i. Then, you should conduct another period of participant observation in the field to use selective or selected observations (to ask further contrast questions through observations and interviews) along with additional descriptive and focused observations.

j. Using the information presented in this chapter and the related readings (following the eight steps presented in Spradley), you should make a componential analysis of one or more domains.

k. Then you should conduct another period of participant observation to make use of all three types of observation: descriptive, focused, and selective.

l. You should synthesize 1 or 2 holistic themes, using the fieldnotes and analyses accumulated to date.

m. Then, you should write statements of those themes as brief assertions.


2. How are you already interpreting or telling stories of your experience through the way you are living? Think about this and write your analysis in your fieldnotes.

3. How are you already reading or interpreting others' interpretations or stories? Think about this and write your analysis in your fieldnotes.

4. How do you think you will change how you read others' stories based on your review of naturalistic inquiry and various associated approaches to analysis, synthesis, and interpretation? Think about this and write your analysis in your fieldnotes.

5. Do soee narrative writing to tell a story about something or someone in your inquiry project. Reflect on the implicit interpretive stances you are using in creating this story as a representation of your "reading" of the situation you wrote about.

6. Discuss the kinds of interpretation you are doing without writing at all and explore how writing can enhance your interpretations.

7. If you are using literature, theory, or other explicit interpretive stances in your inquiry, describe these briefly and discuss how these concerns are influencing your study.

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