{"id":5552,"date":"2018-12-05T11:12:59","date_gmt":"2018-12-05T16:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/?p=5552"},"modified":"2018-12-05T11:17:42","modified_gmt":"2018-12-05T16:17:42","slug":"beginning-the-coding-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/2018\/12\/05\/beginning-the-coding-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Beginning the Coding Process"},"content":{"rendered":"

Considering I had never read data before the initial run-through of student, alumni, and teacher interviews at the Croft School in Chile, I was very confused when Adam Howard brought up the process of coding data. After having spent hours combing through the data already to get a feel for it, I was really not sure how much deeper I\u2019d have to analyze it when coding. What does coding even mean? I figured it had something to do with breaking down the data (obviously), but to what end? Why couldn\u2019t we have done this during our primary read-through?<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

After having slogged through the data the first time, I was both eager for a break and unsure how to move forward in the project, so I waited a week or so to begin coding. When I began reading the interviews a second time, I didn\u2019t know exactly what to do to code, but with just a highlighter in one hand and a pen in the other I was surprised at just how much I noticed that I hadn\u2019t previously. Our group came up with a list of some preliminary codes to look for, so I just dove in. Having this clear list of terms to pick out, combined with the insights into the students\u2019 characters gained from the first read-through, has made the reading feel much less superficial and more productive despite the earlier disconnect I felt from the interviews having not conducted them.<\/span><\/p>\n

I suppose I shouldn\u2019t really be surprised at the amount I\u2019ve gained from this rereading; after all, many of my professors suggest doing readings for their classes two, three, five times. Studies such as those done by Rawson, Dunlosky and Thiede (2000) have shown it to be effective for processing and retaining information. That said, being a college student, I don\u2019t have time for that, but this project has forced me to create that time and reread this data with a completely different mindset. While I may have been overwhelmed at first by the sheer amount of data, the point of the research project seems so much more focused now, and will likely only become clearer once we begin narrowing down the codes and surfacing themes.<\/span><\/p>\n

One interesting theme I\u2019ve found is the contrast between how students (not the teachers, though) define and claim to value community service and how they actually are involved. In his book on Nikolai Gogol, Vladimir Nabokov describes a word in Russian, \u043f\u043e\u0448\u043b\u043e\u0441\u0442\u044c (pronounced <\/span>poshlust<\/span><\/i>), which captures the essence of something in popular culture that is seen as falsely important, associated with bad taste, or self-satisfying (1944). I believe this word perfectly reflects the state of community service in elite schools, especially the Croft School: the emphasis on service gives off the message that the school is generous and its students kind-hearted, yet at its heart their practices of service are just superficial and don\u2019t accomplish as much as the school would like to have the public believe. Many students criticize the Croft School\u2019s supposedly \u201csurface-level\u201d commitment to community service, as they feel the school doesn\u2019t do enough outside of encouraging its students to donate money or build a house once a year while the teachers praise the school\u2019s involvement through donations, building houses, etc. Of course, this belief is not universal among Croft students, and many critics don\u2019t take initiative in finding other organizations through which they can engage more effectively, however this highlights a major disconnect between the values of community service between the teachers and the students, a theme which may require some further exploration. These results did not surface from the initial read-through of the data, but rather from the coding process, which turned out to be much more useful than I had initially envisioned.<\/span><\/p>\n

I feel like I\u2019m kind of rambling now, and I need to get back to coding data. Until next time, enjoy this gif of Snoop Dogg turning into a dog.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\n

\n <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Considering I had never read data before the initial run-through of student, alumni, and teacher interviews at the Croft School in Chile, I was very confused when Adam Howard brought up the process of coding data. After having spent hours combing through the data already to get a feel for it, I was really not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8305,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5552"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5552"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5555,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5552\/revisions\/5555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/global-elites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}