1. ENGLISH 145
DISCUSSION ON DATA ANALYSIS

2. EXTRA CREDIT/BONUS
POINTS FOR NOVEMBER
 11/2: Awareness Movie Series: "Into Iraq" is a documentary
being presented by the University Program Board free for
students. Bone Student Center, 138. 7:00 to 9:00 p.m
 11/5: Safe Zone Brown Bag, "I Am A Person of Color and I Am
LGBT" Student Panel will have students sharing their stories
and experiences about their lives at home and at ISU. Lunch
will be provided. Student Services Building, 375. 12:00 to 2:00
p.m.
 11/10: "A Family Is A Family Is A Family: A Rosie O'Donnell
Celebration" is a documentary that highlights mainly LGBT
families but all diverse family make ups in general. The film
offers profound and funny insights from children on what
family means to them. Schroeder Hall, 130. 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.

3. Extra credits cont.
 11/12: "The Many Faces of Poverty," is a poverty
simulation that will immerse participants in a 'day
in the life' of a typical low income family trying to
survive from month to month. Dinner will be
provided. Pre-registration is required to attend. Sign
up at www.DeanOfStudents.ilstu.edu. Student
Services Building, BBC Activity Room. 4:00 to 7:30
p.m.

4. AGENDA
 Data Analysis: Analysis of Interviews
 Data Analysis: Analysis of Surveys
 Looking at Interview Data and a data analysis
paper.
 Individual Work on SAPs

5. STAGES OF DATA
COLLECTION AND
ANALYSIS
 STAGE 1: Soliciting participants: Sending our invitation letters
 STAGE 2: Asking permission
 STAGE 3: Setting up interview dates and locations
 STAGE 4: Conducting your interviews (with an audio-tape!)
 STAGE 5: Transcribing (writing our what is spoken in the
interview)
 STAGE 6: Sending our thank you emails
 STAGE 7: Analyzing and Paying critical attention to the data

6. A FEW TIPS FOR
TRANSCRIPTIONS
 Difference between oral speech and written
 Aim for a transcription that’s as close to spoken
words as possible.
 Minor grammatical corrections is okay. Most
scholars agree that whenever possible, you should
do minor grammatical corrections.

7. During the interview
process, what you you do
if?
 …your participant responds with one-word
answer?
 ….your participants strays completely from the
topic?
 …..your interviewer does not directly answer your
questions?
 ……you are out of batteries?!

8. Post-Transcription:
Evaluating findings
 After transcribing, read your data very carefully.
 Look for passages, key words, different intonations,
repeated words.
 Think about which quotes stand out and why.
 What do the quotes suggest in relation to your main
research question (e.g. bullying in elementary
school)?

9. Moving from Transcript to
Analysis
 Analyzing your interview will require you to think
about your “data” in relation to your research
question (what were you trying to find out?)
 It also means that you are moving from summary to
a point of significance.
 Think about the parts in relation to the whole.
 What generalizations can you make based on your
findings? Do you have sufficient data to make
generalizations?

10. Emerging categories
 Rather than bringing your own assumptions or
preconceived categories and themes, you need to reread
your data and find themes that recur in your data.
 So, categories of findings are defined AFTER you worked
on your data (e.g. interview transcriptions or surveys)
Example # 1: What is the benefit of youth mentoring
program?
Responses to this question were sorted out: Benefits to
youth, benefits to family, benefits to community.
Example # 2: What makes a quality education program?
Responses to this question were sorted out: Staff, relevance,
participation, time , content

11. SAMPLE DATA ANALYSIS:BRYAN’S
CONVERSATIONAL INTERVIEW
RESEARCH QUESTION: What is the relationship between
“people’s attitudes toward the language use in African
American community” and their “prior experiences and
current behavior”?
BRYAN’S INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:
1) How did you learn AAE (African American English)?
2) Have you had any difficulties or confrontations because
of language?
3) What dialect did you speak at home with your family?
With guests and other relatives?

12. Your Turn to create
Conversational Questions
 Write down your main research questions
 Turn your research questions into three clear
conversational questions you would ask someone
you will interview.

13. CLASS ACTIVITY:
Looking at an interview
transcript
 Skim through the interview transcript.
 What are the strengths of the interviewer and the
interviewee?
 Jot down/underline questions that you liked. What
are some of the data you think the author can use
from this interview?

14. Analyzing and writing-up
your interview data
 Now, read the data analysis and results.
 What are some of the rhetorical moves the writer made in the
introduction?
 What are the purposes of direct and indirect quotes in this
interview?
 Underline the parts where the writer used direct quotes of her
participant. With another color or pen, underline her use of
indirect quote/her interpretation of the participants’ words.
Next, identify the analysis she has done overall.
 How has Bryan analyzed the text? How did Bryan introduce
the participant?

15. Representation of your
participants
 Read the essay Bryan wrote after interviewing
Irving. Looking at the exact quotations he selected,
discuss how he represents Irving’s voice. What is
your impression of Irving based on the quotes
Bryan has used?
 What can you as an interviewer ensure you
represent your subject in an honest, objective way?

16. Agenda for 11/4
 Reading and commenting on Samantha Sanderson’s
Columbine: A day to remember
 Looking at sample research paper’s DATA
ANALYSIS/RESULTS sections in groups.
 Individual Work: Find an empirical article that is
relevant to your research topic and analyze it
carefully in your blogs.

17. More immersion to data
analysis
 What are the differences you have seen between
Byran’s analysis and Samantha’s analysis? What
rhetorical features makes Samantha’s analysis
different than Byran’s analysis and results?
 Fill out the chart in your groups.

18. Comparative data analysis
Bryan’s Data Analysis in AAV Samantha’s Data Analysis on
Columbine
What’s the focus of his research?
Who is his participant?
How is the data collected?
Comment on his use of “data” in his
analysis
What’s the focus of her research?
Who’s her participant?
How’s the data collected?
Comment on her use of “data”

19. Critiquing the Results and Discussion
Section of Sample Articles
 Let’s get into five groups
 Read the section on Data analysis and Results
 Who are the participants of this study?
 How does this section begin?
 How is it organized?
 What are the themes that emerged in this research?
 What’s the evidence they use to support the claims?
 What stands out the most for you?
 In what ways can this be improved? What grade
would you give this person? (if you have a student
paper)
19

20. Individual work
Let’s find one article related to your social action that
include interview or survey data analysis
(Go to ERIC or EBSCO host, or RETRIEVE one of the
articles you discussed in your literature reviews)
Go back to the questions in the previous slide to blog
about your selected article

21. 10-15 MINUTES INDIVIDUAL WORK AND
ASSISTANCE
If you have not started the interviews or survey
questions, please take the time now to draft them.
If you have collected some data, reflect on the data
collected and write down in your blogs what they may
mean to you (this will be the beginning of your
preliminary analysis)
If you have done some data collection, what are your next
steps?
If you have done all your data collection, what are some
strategies you can use to connect the data collection
(i.e., interviews, surveys, documentaries, media, etc)
to writing up results (i.e., ways to organize your
results from the interviews, surveys, etc)?

22. Going over parts of your
SAPs
 Reading the handout

23. Assignments
 Continue your data collection. We will do some
preliminary analysis next THURSDAY. So, you will
need some kind of data even if it means only one
interview transcript.
 Read for Discussion # 6: On Social Class (will be
presented by Matt and Derek)