I’m revisiting my pilot study as I rewrite the conference paper which I based on it. I’ve realised that not all my data was coded using the final coding scheme, so I’m doing a quick code.

I’ve realised that what I’m looking for really affects my coding. I’m not particularly interested in course materials and tutors at the moment, so I’m skimping on my coding which relates to them.

Looking at this scheme, I still have too many codes (I’ve got six categories – all of which can be coded deep, strategic or surface). Eighteen is too many to keep in your head at one time – even with them all on a piece of paper in front of my nose and I can ony concentrate on a few at a time.

And I feel a huge part of the premise underlying the coding scheme is wrong. I’m interested in when the students are doing social things, organisational things and educational things. That’s much more important than whether they are doing things in a deep, strategic or surface way.

This is all very useful experience in using a coding scheme, but it’s rather frustrating when you’re stuck with something that is wrong but you still have to run with it (no way am I going to completely recode everything in time to get this in by the end of next week).