A Dissertation by GRACE HUI-CHIN LIN Submitted to the Office of ...

Hence, in this study, each word the students uttered in the interview was a
single datum that the researcher would not omit. In order to make the coding process
not driven by the literature review, all the concepts expressed by students were coded
and interpreted thoroughly. Indeed, the open-coding method enabled the researcher to
formulate the students’ descriptions into several themes, which were not exactly the
same as the previous contributions in the communication strategy field.
In this study, the disordered statements and points in the videotape were
transcribed totally and open-coded. Students on purpose did not group their words
associated with their perceptions in several specific categories of themes. However,
through the method of open-coding, the researcher was able to gather students’
similar beliefs and categorize them into themes, including similar themes or different
themes from the previous contributions of this field. That is to say, although the
themes concluded from students’ unprofessional perspectives obviously or
unobviously might be related to the conventional theme, with the method of
open-coding, several conventional and updated new themes from the seven
participants’ various statements could emerge, and be framed and defined.
Constant Comparison Analysis
The method of comparing and contrasting coding was used in this study.
Constant comparison coding was supported by Dey (2004): “Comparison is the
engine through which we can generate insights, by identifying patterns of similarity
or differences within the data” (p. 88). Accordingly, this process assisted the
researcher in exploring the similar themes generated from seven students’ perceptions.
It also assisted the researcher easily to distinguish whether the issues in previous
studies also were mentioned by many participants.
51