Category: ARP

7. Thematic data analysis

Thematic analysis is a method for identifying, analysing, and interpreting patterns aka themes within qualitative data. After completing my interviews and receiving the questionnaire responses, I followed the six steps recommended by Clarke and Braun (2017):

Step 1: Become familiar with the data
Step 2: Generate initial codes
Step 3: Search for themes
Step 4: Review and refine themes
Step 5: Define and name themes
Step 6: Write up

I will only cover the first 5 steps in this blog post.

Step 1: Become familiar with the data

To do this, I printed out the interview transcripts for annotation. I highlighted phrases that stood out to me in terms of psychological safety and sharing. I noted initial observations, such as mentions of trust, fear of judgment, or collaborative practices and used thematic content analysis to identify common themes
across the transcribed interviews (Clarke and Braun, 2017).

Rough notes after transcribing, reading and re-reading the interviews and questionnaires as follows:

Participants seem to value safe spaces for for exploration and sharing unfinished ideas and drafts without fear of judgment.
Large groups and unfamiliar settings tend to inhibit participation. Strategies like anonymity and proactive facilitation (e.g., encouraging participation) can help create safer online spaces.
Feeling respected and being able to express oneself freely, even when views differ, are key to psychological safety.
Participants associated this with an inclusive atmosphere where differences are acknowledged and accepted.

Step 2: Code generation

I have decided to use. open coding – I don’t know what is going to emerge out of the research (if anything!) so this seems to be the best approach.

Using the initial notes as a starting point, I started to work through the data (transcripts and questionnaire responses) to create codes. Codes are concise labels that captured key features of the data relevant to the research question. This step involved both data-driven (inductive) and theory-driven (deductive) approaches.

I highlighted different segments of text and assigned descriptive codes, e.g., “fear of criticism,” “peer support,” “power imbalance,” and “trust-building activities.”

I then colour-coded each group according to the relevant code (e.g., codes related to fear in orange, collaboration in green, etc.) and then pulled out each code and put it onto Miro.

Examples of codes:

  • Fear of critique in competitive settings
  • Feeling excluded in group activities.
  • Competitiveness with peers discouraging sharing.
  • Encouragement to share drafts.
  • Safe spaces for experimentation.
Initial coding on Miro

Step 3: Searching for themes

The thematic analysis of the questionnaires and interviews revealed several initial emergent themes, listed below:

  • Curating safe spaces
  • Respect, inclusion and identity in creative spaces
  • Creating non-competitive learning environments
  • Group dynamics
  • Cultural barriers
  • The role of the tutor
  • Designing it into the curriculum
Grouped codes according to themes

Step 4: Review and refine themes

During my analysis, I found I needed to take a closer look at my initial themes to make sure they really captured what my participants were telling me and that each theme told its own clear story. Looking back at my data, I wanted to be certain they worked together naturally within each theme.

I noticed some themes were actually telling similar stories and some codes appeared in multiple places (e.g., cultural aspects appear under both Cultural barriers and Respect, inclusion and identity)

“Curating safe spaces” and “Creating non-competitive learning environments” also have significant overlap – both deal with fostering supportive learning atmospheres so the themes of these can most likely be combined… similarly, “The role of the tutor” and “Group dynamics” both touch on interpersonal relationships in learning.

Initial thoughts…

  • Curating safe spaces could be elevated to an overarching theme, with Creating non-competitive learning environments as a sub-theme
  • Designing it into the curriculum and The role of the tutor could be merged
  • Cultural barriers could be integrated into Respect, inclusion and identity for a more cohesive narrative

Step 5: Define and name themes

Defining and naming themes involved clearly articulating what each theme captured and its significance in answering the research question. This step ensured the themes were distinct, cohesive, and meaningful. It also helps me to clarify the meaning of each theme and, crucially, how it helps me to interpret the data.

The defined themes I ended up with:

Creating conditions for trust: The foundational environmental and interpersonal conditions necessary for learners to feel secure enough to share their work and ideas.

Structure and empathy: The intentional pedagogical frameworks and institutional structures that facilitate safe sharing and learning

Overcoming cultural barriers to sharing: The identification and navigation of cultural differences that impact willingness and ability to share in educational settings

Power dynamics in groups: The recognition and management of power relationships and their impact on group interaction and learning

Examples of data

Questionnaire responses

Survey-Analysis-_-Online-SurveysDownload


Anonymised student interview transcript

Interview-transcript-Student-C-Download

References

Clarke, V. and Braun, V. (2017) ‘Thematic analysis’, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 12(3), pp. 297–298. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2016.1262613.

6. Ethical data collection

As I mentioned in my action plan, but wish to emphasise here: My project focuses on psychological safety. It is essential, therefore, that my ethical approach reflects this, ensuring that my participants feel safe and supported throughout the research process.

I’ve written more about how I wish to achieve this in my Reflecting on research methods blog post and also within the ethical action plan itself.

Ethical action plan

I’ve uploaded both versions of my ethical action plan, to show the progression and thought process change between the two. My tutor John’s comments were invaluable to me as I widened my considerations and added in further details highlighted in yellow, based on his comments. One of the key feedback points was looking at the ‘crit’ as an ‘inherited institutional form of sharing – blending performance and ritual, power and cultural capital, vulnerability and an (often tacit) pedagogy’. (O’Reilly, 2024). I want to explore this idea of tacit pedagogy and whether (or how) it translates into online learning.

Ethical-Action-Plan_Yasi-Tehrani_v2-1Download
Ethical-Action-Plan_Yasi-Tehrani_v3-cleaned-1Download

One of John’s suggestion was to incorporate visual elicitation (be it photo or object) in interviews, allowing participants to express their perceptions of psychological safety through photo or object prompts or perhaps asking them to bring or make something that articulates or expresses ‘feeling safe’. I love this idea and think that this concept is definitely worth exploring and while it might not be feasible to do during my interviews with student due to time constraints – I’d like to find a way to include it in my practice as a learning designer when it comes to designing activities in which students are asked to share.

Data collection methods

While exploring research design approaches, I found Creswell’s (2023) central questions for mixed methods particularly helpful in structuring my methodology.

  • What knowledge claims are being made by the researcher (including a theoretical perspective)?
  • What strategies of inquiry will inform the procedures?
  • What methods of data collection and analysis will be used?

1. Knowledge claims

I think my approach is a constructivist one where knowledge is co-created through shared experiences and shaped by the social, cultural and digital environments in which we operate. My goal is to explore how students experience psychological safety within online learning spaces and to understand how this impacts their willingness to share creative work. I’m also cautious not to hide behind theory. As Nyemba and Mayer (2017) caution, academic researchers can sometimes become disconnected from the realities of their co-researchers and community partners. To avoid this, I want to keep my research grounded in the lived experiences of the students I work with, ensuring their voices remain central throughout. This is one of the main reasons I have opted to use semi-structured interviews.

2. Strategies of inquiry

As student voice is central to my project, it made sense to me to adopt a phenomenological approach as my research strategy.

3. Data collection methods and analysis

Researchers may first survey a large sample of individuals, and then follow up with a few of them to obtain their specific language and voices about the topic. In these situations, the advantages of collecting both closed-ended quantitative data and open-ended qualitative data prove advantageous to best understand a research problem.

Creswell (2023),p. 22

As the topic and area of psychological safety is new to me, I’d like to adopt an open, exploratory approach (qualitative) which is also one that does not assume variables (quantitative). For this reason, I will be adopting a mixed methods design.

Mixed-methods approach

Qualitative approaches prioritise understanding individual experiences, using open-ended methods like interviews and narratives to capture rich, contextual insights. On the other hand, quantitative approaches focus on measurable data, using tools like surveys to test hypotheses or identify trends.

However, neither approach alone seemed sufficient to fully address the complexities of psychological safety in online learning. I wanted to capture both the breadth of student experiences through quantitative measures and the depth of individual perspectives through qualitative data. This led me to adopt a mixed-methods approach, which aligns with pragmatic knowledge claims and allows for both open- and closed-ended data collection methods.

To support my project, I have developed the following materials:

Data collection methodMode of delivery
QuestionnaireJISC (online survey)
Semi-structured interviewMS Teams
Data collection methods

Data collection methods

I’ve included a copy of the questionnaire, the interview schedule and the interview slides for reference.

Questionnaire

Questionnaire (JISC) Fostering-psychological-safety-in-creative-arts-environmentsDownload

Interview schedule and slides

Interview-QuestionsDownload
ARP_Interview_slides-1Download

References

Creswell, J.W. (2003) Research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method approaches. 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.

Lenette, C. (2022) Participatory action research: ethics and decolonization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Neubauer, B., Witkop, C. and Varpio, L. (2019) ‘How phenomenology can help us learn from the experiences of others’, Perspectives on Medical Education, 8(2), pp. 90–97. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40037-019-0509-2.

Nyemba, F. and Mayer, M. (2017) ‘Exploring the roots of participatory action research: An interview with Dr Marja-Liisa Swantz’, Action Research, 16(3), pp. 319–338. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1476750316684003.

O’Reilly, J. (2024) Feedback on my ethical action plan.

Pauwels, L. (2019) ‘Visual elicitation in interviews’, in Atkinson, P., Delamont, S., Cernat, A., Sakshaug, J.W. and Williams, R.A. (eds) SAGE research methods foundations. London: SAGE Publications Ltd. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526421036846496 (Accessed: 14 October 2024).

1b. What’s the plan?

I feel like there is a certain irony in mapping a project focused on ‘realising human potential’ (McNiff 2013, p. 35) into a Gantt chart, but here I am, trying to bring structure to the journey!

Project action plan. Click on the image for a full-screen version.

Doing this has helped me to see what’s coming up and how much there is left to do. It looks very neat and ordered, I’ll be very surprised if it plays out like this, but it’s been useful doing this process mapping exercise. I hope the assumptions that I’ve built my plans on hold.

If there’s one thing (and there’s been many!) I’ve learned about myself throughout this PgCert is the importance of having a clear deadline as means of structuring my work well!

References

Mcniff, J. (2013) Action research : principles and practice. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York: Routledge.

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4. The ARP of embracing messiness

To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now.

Beckett, 1965.

There’s a strange sense of discomfort that I am feeling as I engage with the ARP unit. At its core, this discomfort stems from a significant shift: moving from structured, directive learning to a space of increased autonomy and self-direction.

This transition has left me feeling unsettled. The familiar scaffolding of clear instructions (what to read, what to submit, when to submit it) has been switched out to a more open landscape of possibilities. It’s not just me; conversations with peers reveal a shared experience. We find ourselves yearning for the comfort of clear directives, even as we step into this space of greater academic freedom.

What’s particularly interesting is how this mirrors my research into psychological safety in learning spaces. The tension between desiring structure while navigating autonomy reflects a deeper question about how, as learners, we adapt to different levels of academic freedom.

This reflection prompts important questions about the delicate balance between providing supportive frameworks and fostering independent thinking in higher education. How much structure is enough? When does scaffolding become limiting? These questions seem particularly relevant as I continue my investigation into creating safe learning spaces.

In an attempt to combat my own feelings of disorganisation, I stuck the A3 poster of the action research cycle that was shared with us in the first workshop on my wall.

Poster of McNiff and Whitehead’s Action Research Cycle, 2009

I find myself staring at it almost daily, trying to make sense of the different segments and how my project might ‘map’ onto it. No matter how I try, my project seems to resist this structuring. It follows part of the spiral but then something needs to be tweaked to make it flow neatly into the next part. Instead of seeing this as a failure of my action research project, I’ve begun to reframe it as a feature of the process itself. This resistance, as Cook suggests, helps me recognise “the interconnections and complexities involved in [the] enquiry, despite being unable to isolate clear lines of progression” (Cook, 2009).

Embracing mess

Research often demands order: structured steps, clear outcomes, and a researcher who occupies a position of knowledge and power. This kind of structure, in theory, appeals to me. It feels settled and reassuring. I know this isn’t the right approach for the ARP unit. Action research, especially a participatory approach, thrives in the messiness. It requires us to sit with uncertainty, to question the rules we use to frame our understanding of the world. Cook goes one step further, arguing that “making the mess visible is also an act of generosity towards future researchers, helping them understand how outcomes were achieved and how they might build on those outcomes” (Cook, 2009). In this context, mess becomes “a forum for exchange—a place where perceptions, beliefs, and knowledge are unearthed, co-constructed, and critiqued” (Cook, 2009). Cook goes one step further to state that:

Making the mess visible is also an action of generosity towards ‘future researchers to understand how outcomes were achieved and how they might build on those outcomes’

Tina Cook, 2009.

Vulnerability and psychological safety

If I want to explore the concept of psychological safety and asking students to be vulnerable in sharing their creative work in this action research project, I too need to open myself up to vulnerability and potentially failure. It wouldn’t make sense to explore such a topic without taking the ‘messy turns’ that are implicit in it. As Lenette suggests, “vulnerability as an ethical research practice refers to academic researchers being open to and welcoming the impact that others, including co-researchers, can have on their sense of self” (Lenette, 2020).

Why does mess matter?

Grappling with what Ahmed deems the ‘sweaty concepts’ (I can confirm all of this is making me very sweaty) is part of this process. Research is embodied practice. I cannot remove myself from this action research project, as much as I might want to. I need to embrace it and let it uncover what needs to be uncovered and keep concealed that which isn’t ready to be made explicit.

Participatory action research thrives on messiness. It demands a balance between diverse voices and the researcher’s own intentions, often disrupting initial plans. But this disruption is where meaningful (and decolonial) co-learning and change occur. As Lenette notes, it is in these messy spaces where methodological learning is possible, where issues of power, partnerships, and ethics are interrogated (Lenette, 2020.).

In many ways, researchers, like artists, are tasked with finding structures that can hold the diverse, sometimes chaotic, elements within a community. Beckett’s observation reminds us that the goal isn’t to eliminate the mess but to create forms that allow it to exist, embracing its complexity while making space for co-construction and transformation.

The need for mess

Marie Kondo, Japanese organising consultant

Marie Kondo’s philosophy of tidying up revolves around the idea of decluttering your space by keeping only the items that “spark joy.” Her method encourages an almost ritualistic approach to eliminating excess and creating a sense of calm through order. It’s a process that aligns beautifully with my want for clarity and control.

I don’t think this process is about getting comfortable with mess or even learning to embrace it. It’s also not about Marie Kondo-ing it, getting rid of everything that doesn’t “spark joy.” Instead, it’s about finding forms that can hold the mess, allowing it to exist as it is, with all its complexity. The goal isn’t to tidy it up, but to create structures that can accommodate the mess and let it serve its purpose. Maybe the mess is what helps us make sense of our realities. In doing so, we are able to ‘contribute through the development of practical knowledge to the increased well being of human persons and communities in economic, political, psychological, spiritual senses, and to a more equitable and sustainable relationship with the wider ecology of the planet” (Reason and Bradbury, 2008).

See you on the other side!

References

Beckett, S. (1965) Proust: And three dialogues with Georges Duthuit. London: Calder.

Cook, T. (2009) ‘The purpose of mess in action research: building rigour through a messy turn’, Educational Action Research, 17(2), pp. 277–291. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/09650790902914241.

Lenette, C. (2022) Participatory action research: ethics and decolonization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Reason, P. and Bradbury, H. (2008) The Sage handbook of action research : participative inquiry and practice. London: Sage Publications Ltd.

Citations

KonMari (n.d.) [Photo of Marie Kondo]. Available at: https://konmari.com [Accessed: 15 October 2024].

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My research question

Psychological safety, as defined by Edmondson (1999), is the “freedom from fear, embarrassment, or humiliation in groups.” It plays a critical role in cultivating environments where individuals feel safe to express themselves, take risks, and share ideas without fear of negative consequences. In the context of online learning, psychological safety is particularly significant, as it directly influences how students engage with their peers, tutors, and the creative process.

Fears about yourself prevent you from doing your best work. Fears about others prevent you from doing your own work.

David Bayles, The Art of Fear

Understanding how to avoid this fear lies at the heart of my research question: How do students’ perceptions of psychological safety in online learning environments affect their willingness to share creative work?

You can find out a bit more about me and my academic practice context in this introductory blog post.

Recommended guide to reading the blog posts

Positionality statement

1a. Background

1b. What’s the plan?

2. Psychological safety as a phenomena

3. Literature review

4. The ARP of embracing messiness

5. Reflecting on research methods

6. Ethical data collection

7. Thematic data analysis

8. Results

9. Reflections

10. Looking ahead

References