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Making sense of the information

Initial analysis and identification of themes

After the interviews and focus groups are complete transcribe electronic recordings and complete your notes. The notes can be analysed to identify themes — these should be clear after several interviews as they keep repeating themselves.

Themes can be identified from a range of different perspectives.

  • Over time — these are themes that seem to be consistent over many years and have become hallmarks of the club or facility (eg multi-generational involvement of the whole family).
  • Range of sources — these themes are from a range of different sources including interviews, photos, annual reports (eg tracking a project from idea through to realisation).
  • Range of stakeholders — such as internal and external stakeholders (eg the success of a club’s youth development programme.

Ideally, to show that the values are widely held views about the club or facility, most themes you’ve identified should be based on the views of both internal and external stakeholders.

Checking with the stakeholders

A key step in preparing the case study is checking back with the key stakeholders once you’ve finished the initial analysis and identified the recurring values.

This check-back is likely to be a two-stage process.

  • A presentation and discussion about what you found.
  • Providing the written report (or summaries of key parts of the report) to position holders/administrators for sign off.

If you have identified any negative themes, it’s good to include these in the check-back process. That way any solutions can be considered before the information is shared more broadly through the final reporting processes.