Data Collection and Analysis Process
I conducted qualitative analysis on the focus group I conducted for my project. In the Appendix of this post, I have shared the transcript of the focus group, with the student names anonymised for ethical practice. In the transcription, I used thematic analysis, which involves ‘coding qualitative data to identify themes or patterns for further analysis, related to [the] research question’ (Saunders et al 2023, p 665).
Practically, I did this by audio-recording the in-person focus group conversation on MS Teams (taking my participants’ consent) and listening back to the recording to give finesse to the transcript that Teams created. As the conversation lasted approximately 22 minutes, I did not feel the need to use a coding software like NVivo. I created themes/nodes myself in MS Word and manually organised selected quotes under different themes by creating a key in which different highlight colours signified different themes/nodes. I also put certain quotes in bold that I wanted to focus on in my data analysis. The developed themes were a result of specific questions I had in mind and had planned the focus group around as well as some unexpected themes that arose out of our semi-structured discussion, i.e., the interesting tangents that arose out of the group dynamics/interactions (Liamputtong 2011, p 50). The themes I finally developed were:
- Students tracking their progress through self-assessment surveys
- Significance for students to visualise their skills and progress through the radar charts
- Significance for students to set goals for themselves through self-assessment surveys
- Significance for students of receiving customised written reports that I created
- Students understanding Learning Outcomes of a unit through self-assessment surveys
- Student response to the self-assessment surveys approach vs standard unit evaluations
- Student response to practicalities of the survey
- Significance of the midway touchpoint worksheet for the students
- Students more actively engaging in their learning journeys
I followed Saunders et al’s six phases of thematic analysis: ‘data familiarisation; data coding; initial theme generation; theme development and review; theme refining, defining, and naming; writing up’ (2023, p 665) through the acts of transcription, coding, writing multiple drafts of this blog post and the slides, and rechecking the transcripts and coded data.
Findings
In this blog post, I discuss some findings that I have not discussed in my final slide deck and presentation.
a. Midway touchpoint worksheet
One thing I found surprising is that a worksheet I adapted from a toolkit that my manager Dr Frania Hall has created in her Teaching & Learning project was a favourite among my students in this self-assessment project (see Fig 1). I used the worksheet as a midway touchpoint so that students keep reflecting on their learning journeys and don’t just see the SKM as a box-ticking activity in the first and last classes. While the students were answering the worksheet, I was afraid they might think it too simplistic or ‘childish’. But, in the focus group, the students heartily agreed with each other – leading to an interesting tangent, as discussed in this blog post – that they enjoyed this activity, with quotes such as:
Student 1: I think I quite enjoyed the post-it note one.
Student 3: Oh, that was good!
Student 2: I think doing that like reflection right in the middle was also like a nice reminder of the survey that we did at the beginning as well. Rather than just doing it at the beginning, then doing it right at the end. It was nice to like sort of stop halfway through. Yeah, go like, look back on how you were so far and then you can go and look back on that now that we’re at the end and see sort of the progression. Which I think is quite nice.
This has reinforced my inclusion of this worksheet in future iterations of this project, especially as it is in line with the constructivist approach of this project in which students can self-reflect (Allen 2022). I also realised and vocalised during the focus group that I should have sent the students scans of the worksheet so they had the ‘receipt’ to this too, but the students clarified that I did ask them to take pictures of the worksheet and I brought the worksheets in for the students to look at again, so they didn’t feel like they missed out on it. Nonetheless, I will in the future send the students scans of their answered worksheets too to keep and reflect on.
b. Understanding Learning Outcomes (LOs)
I discuss this in the slide deck, but I did want to reflect on whether I should clarify from the start that the criteria in the SKMs are adapted from the unit’s LOs. I felt like I had a ‘gotcha’ moment with the students in the focus group when I clarified that the criteria are from the LOs. I don’t want the students to feel like they’ve been caught out or a trick has been played on them. Having said that, I don’t want the students to lose the experience of reading the SKM criteria and absorbing them because they equate the criteria with the standardised – sometimes dry/formal – language of the LOs. That might undo the aim of this project. I have not yet decided how to approach this in the future and will need to consider this more.
c. Practicalities of the survey
I asked the students how they felt about rating themselves on a Likert Scale and thus quantifying their confidence regarding their skills and knowledge. The students said they didn’t have any issues with that, though one mentioned that they were nervous about appearing ‘overly confident’ if they rated themselves too high (Student 2). Another mentioned that they preferred the Likert Scale to the text boxes as:
Student 3: I feel like sometimes I don’t really know what to put in those boxes, so it’s nice to just kind of have the numbers. Unless I have like really strong thoughts on something, but I would just tell you like I don’t think it like needs to go in the boxes. So, I quite liked having the numbers as well because again I think it was helpful.
So, I can make some of the text boxes optional in the future (apart from asking students to set objectives for themselves). This ‘choicemaking’ is also in line with the constructivist approach (Bufkin & Bryde, 1996, p. 59, cited in Allen 2022).
References
Allen, A (2022) ‘An Introduction to Constructivism: Its Theoretical Roots and Impact on Contemporary Education’, Journal of Learning Design and Leadership, 1(1). Available at: https://ldljournal.web.illinois.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Andrew-Allen-Constructivism_JLDL_Vol1Issue1September2022.pdf (Accessed 2 January 2026).
Bufkin, L J and Bryde, S (1996) ‘Implementing a constructivist approach in higher education with early childhood educators’, Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 17(2), pp 58–65. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1090102960170207 (Accessed 12 January 2026).
Hall, F (nd) Positive Evaluation Framework. Available at: https://positiveevaluation.myblog.arts.ac.uk/tool-kits/ (Accessed 18 September 2025).
Liamputtong, P (2011) Focus Group Methodology: Principle and Practice. SAGE Publications, ProQuest Ebook Central. Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/detail.action?docID=689539 (Accessed 7 January 2026).
Saunders, M N K et al (2023) Research Methods for Business Students, ninth edition. United Kingdom: Pearson. Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/UAL/detail.action?docID=7219451 (Accessed 2 January 2026).
Appendix