The second stage of the evaluation cycle that is called theory analysis is all about understanding the results from your data collection. There are many analytic methods that can be used to interpret your data that include qualitative and quantitative methods.
Depending on the type of evaluation you’re conducting depending on the type of analysis you are conducting, you may need to find repeating themes and patterns in your data or look for connections between different items. The process of analysis involves sorting, coding and comparing your data to existing theories and concepts. It includes making sense of what you are discovering through your data.
For example when you conduct qualitative research on participants in a course, you can use an understanding of a theory like grounded theory (GT) to guide your analysis and assist in the development of a theoretical framework from your data. GT is a research method which allows you to explore theories through constant interaction between data collection and analyses. The GT process is based on open coding, which is utilized to discover interesting phenomena within the data. Axial coding, which is a method of identifying the relationships between phenomena and selective coding in order to bring the emerging ideas together.
The primary category is an aggregation of all the emerging phenomena. It could be one concept or a set of related concepts. The chosen idea is compared to a theory and then the suitability is assessed by iteratively comparing incidents to the conceptual. During this stage, memos are kept to keep track of and reflect on the emerging concepts.
