The oral reading tapes were also transcribed. I then analyzed the miscues in each reading, deciding if the student was using context and background knowledge, print cues or both.

I wanted to compare what students said about using context and background knowledge, print cues or both. I wanted to compare what students said about reading with how they actually read. I continued to analyze as I wrote the report, as I read articles related to my learnings and as I discussed my analysis and learnings with the RiPAL network facilitator. (p. 7)

Jenny Horsman (2008) collected data about what people learned from workshops and courses about addressing impacts of violence on learning. The following description of analysis is from her report:

I often think the process of analysis is a little mysterious. For me it usually involves reading and re-reading my data-marking words and phrases that I notice repeatedly, seem surprising patterns in the data. I paid less attention to the array of comments about what participants liked, but was drawn to statements that surprised or disturbed me-the ones I couldn't let go of because they confirmed my doubts about my effectiveness in transforming educational practices. Sometimes I physically cut up printed copies of the data to organize and re-organize my scraps of paper into themes. For this study, I initially used the computer to re-organize the data according to my research questions. But I soon realized that it was less compelling to read all the responses to one question than it was to read all the answers one person had offered...I returned to reading the initial data several times to find new patterns and themes.

Building on her analysis of words and ideas, described above, Jenny created collages as a way to work more holistically with the themes she'd constructed: