Table 3

Ten steps and procedures for conducting qualitative data analysis

Steps	Procedures
1. Assembling materials for analysis.	Transcribe interviews and gather other forms of data to be analysed. Print transcripts with margins on the left and right sides of text for coding.
2. Refamiliarising oneself with the data.	Conduct an initial read through the transcripts and/or notes from participant observation, documents and so on. Begin or continue memoing in this stage.
3. Open or initial coding procedures.	Conduct a second read through the transcripts and/or data and begin initial (open) coding. Assign ‘descriptors’ or codes to text segments or passages. Codes written in the left margins of the text, memos and reflective notes on the right margins. Repeat this step several times as you begin to see patterns and categories in the data.
4. Generating categories and assigning codes to them.	Process of looking for similarities and narrowing codes (winnowing) conceptually into categories. Rearrange and refocus categories to eliminate overlap and redundancy. Assign names to categories that emerge from the data.
5. Generating themes from categories.	Compare categories and look for the story they tell. Identify overarching themes that cross-cut the data or categories.
6. Strategies of validation.	Use standards of validation to ensure trustworthiness (multiple forms of data collection, multiple coders, member checking, peer review, external audits and so on).
7. Interpreting and reporting findings from the participants.	Building off member checking, peer review and previous data analysis steps, develop a table of quotes for themes by participants. Weave quotes into discussion of findings.
8. Interpreting and reporting findings from the literature.	As above, develop a table of quotes/passages from the literature that support themes to reference during write-up.
9. Visual representations of data and findings.	Represent findings through visual display of tables, figures, graphs, flow charts and diagrams.
10. Strengths, limitations, delimitations and suggestions for future research.	Discuss strengths, limitations and delimitations of the research to help ensure transparency throughout the research process. Provide directions for future research.