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Chapter Two Part Two – Methodology - Page 87
the concepts outlined this chapter, and to apply those resources to a consideration of the
data contained in each sample.
Regarding interpretation, again, this is carried out in the light of the theoretical and
methodological perspectives that inform the study. How can those perspectives guide
the formulation of summaries and conclusions from the data that characterise and focus
on dynamics, concepts and issues which are particularly visible through a group-
analytic ethnographic lens? As with previous foci, the challenge is to link ideas about
how learning and personal change can take place with incidents where that may be
either happening or being prevented.
Regarding analysis, the study turns next in Chapter Three, to a consideration of
methods, and in Chapter Four to an account of the events of the semester. Further
implementations of this linking theory follow in Chapters Five to Nine, the Synchronic
Analyses.
In order to make clear the argument of the thesis, the findings of each chapter, both on
the processes of the learning group and on ways in which those processes have been
investigated, are summarised at the end of each of the five ‘Synchronic’ analyses in
Chapters Five to Nine, and these findings are then linked together in the summaries and
conclusions in Chapter Ten.