Step Four: Gathering Data and Analyzing Information

Coding and Finding Themes
When you have finished transcribing or documenting the information you’ve gathered, you can move to coding, which is a way of identifying common threads or themes. If you have structured your questions according to themes, they will be easier to identify.

For example, if you want to know about barriers to arts access you can ask about cost, distance, lack of time, public transportation, whether the space or event was welcoming, and whether participants connected to the activity being offered. The information gathered from each survey, interview or focus group can then be slotted into these same categories, or “buckets”. Create a bucket for other comments to catch feedback that doesn’t fit into existing buckets. Sometimes the most interesting observations come from this other bucket.

If you have a lot of interviews you might need coding software to help you manage the information.

Using Quotes
Your report might be full of interesting charts, but nothing beats a quote from someone directly involved! As you go through the interviews, surveys and focus group notes, identify quotes that illustrate the impact of the project or that provide unique observations. Arts in the Parks does not ask audience members, volunteers or community organizers to identify themselves on surveys, so quotes remain anonymous. Attributed quotes should in general only be used if they come from someone in a professional position whose point of view is being shared on behalf of their organization.

“While doing surveys I was really able to gather a fuller understanding of why people attend these events and really just how underserved specific areas in Toronto are in terms of arts, culture and a feeling of community.”

- Volunteer, 2016