**6.2 Sampling procedures**

As indicated earlier, the study was undertaken to examine the annotated bibliographies produced by prospective students of the Open Campus' online graduate programmes. Students, working in groups of two, were required to select one of three essay topics and produce an annotated bibliography comprising four annotations to inform the writing of the essay on the selected topic.

For the purposes of this study, the researcher selected work submitted in relation to one essay topic only. The selected essay topic was as follows:

*The mobile phone is making more significant changes to people's lifestyles in contemporary times than the landline equivalent did in an earlier era. Do you agree with this assertion?* 

Of the teams that selected this topic, a random selection was done to identify the assignments of ten of them. Some of the selected teams did not complete the required quota of four annotations, thus the number of annotations available for analysis was thirty-six.

#### **6.3 Defining the unit of analysis**

In each annotation, the sentence was identified as the unit of analysis. This element was selected to make available the smallest possible unit that could be viewed as a meaningful whole in its own right. While smaller and more limited elements, such as words and phrases, were also identified for analysis, it was their role and function in the context of the sentence that made the analysis possible.

For the purpose of the study, the sentence was deemed to be a single unit of meaning comprising three sub-elements namely the verb, the agent of the verb and the extension of the verb. While some of the sentences in the annotations met these criteria, others did not. Many of the sentences in the annotations produced by the student-teams were more complex, combining more than one unit of meaning as defined above. In such cases, the existing sentence was subdivided to yield units that met the requirement as outlined above.

For example, the last two examples of Exhibit 1 below were both combined into a complex sentence in the annotation but for the purpose of this study are deemed to be separate units of meaning. In addition, where a pronoun is used in a follow-up sentence in the original, the noun to which it refers is inserted to ensure that the meaning is clearly conveyed.

#### **Exhibit 1: Examples of units of meaning**

218 International Perspectives of Distance Learning in Higher Education

techniques, where categories are established prior to the analysis based on some theory or

Finally, the study took into account the six questions proposed by Krippendorff (1980) and cited by Stemler (2001), which according to the original author, every content analysis must

All of these questions are addressed, whether explicitly or implicitly, in various aspects of

As indicated earlier, the study was undertaken to examine the annotated bibliographies produced by prospective students of the Open Campus' online graduate programmes. Students, working in groups of two, were required to select one of three essay topics and produce an annotated bibliography comprising four annotations to inform the writing of the

For the purposes of this study, the researcher selected work submitted in relation to one

Of the teams that selected this topic, a random selection was done to identify the assignments of ten of them. Some of the selected teams did not complete the required quota of four annotations, thus the number of annotations available for analysis was thirty-six.

In each annotation, the sentence was identified as the unit of analysis. This element was selected to make available the smallest possible unit that could be viewed as a meaningful whole in its own right. While smaller and more limited elements, such as words and phrases, were also identified for analysis, it was their role and function in the context of the sentence

For the purpose of the study, the sentence was deemed to be a single unit of meaning comprising three sub-elements namely the verb, the agent of the verb and the extension of the verb. While some of the sentences in the annotations met these criteria, others did not. Many of the sentences in the annotations produced by the student-teams were more complex, combining more than one unit of meaning as defined above. In such cases, the existing sentence was subdivided to yield units that met the requirement as outlined above.

*than the landline equivalent did in an earlier era. Do you agree with this assertion?* 

*The mobile phone is making more significant changes to people's lifestyles in contemporary times* 

previously determined themes. (Stemler, 2001).

3. What is the population from which they are drawn? 4. What is the context relative to which the data are analyzed?

essay topic only. The selected essay topic was as follows:

5. What are the boundaries of the analysis? 6. What is the target of the inferences?

**6.1.3 Broad analysis considerations** 

address. The six are,

the study.

1. Which data are analyzed? 2. How are they defined?

**6.2 Sampling procedures** 

essay on the selected topic.

**6.3 Defining the unit of analysis** 

that made the analysis possible.

**MP5**: The article compares landline and mobile phones.

**MP20**: Mobile phones have provided lots of fun and convenience to people's lives.

**MP115**: This article outlines succinctly the anachronistic nature of the landline phone.

**MP116**: It [the article] delves into experiments conducted.

**MP117**: [It] cites pertinent statistics based on research conducted by the European Commission.

The verb was viewed as the sub-element that served as a bridge between the other two subelements and in the process holding the sentence together as a meaningful whole. The agent only comes to light through its association with the verb. Additionally, it is the verb that gives coherence and structure to the additional information contained in the extension.

To prepare the units of meaning for subsequent analysis, each was organized according to the three sub-elements described above and as shown in Table 1.


Table 1. Division of unit analysis into three sub-elements.

Based on this method, 164 units of meaning were identified in the thirty-six (36) annotations selected for analysis.

#### **6.4 Data analysis procedures**

As indicated earlier, quantitative and qualitative, as well as inductive and deductive strategies were employed in data analysis. Data analysis was also conducted at a primary and secondary level.

#### **6.4.1 Primary level analysis**

The deductive approach was taken to analyse the data at this level, driven by features inherent in the essay topic as well as approaches related to the writing of an annotation. Thus, an a priori approach was taken to generating codes that would form the basis for further analysis. The following were the areas of analysis undertaken at the primary level:

An Analysis of the Search Skills of Online Graduate Students as

Table 2. Frequency count of key terms in annotations.

the other three terms.

mobile versus landline.

the Basis for the Development of Appropriate Instructional Strategies 221

In terms of direct referencing therefore, one cannot ignore the stark difference between the number of times 'mobile phone' appeared compared with the number recorded for each of

While one cannot be sure of the factors that gave rise to this situation, it is evident that, in students' interpretation of the essay question, the term mobile phone emerged as the primary term that they needed to focus on. It is also likely that this term was the main key word used to guide their search for sources relative to the essay topic. Alternatively, to the extent that other key words were used, and appeared in the documents sourced, these were not accorded the

When one looks at the essay topic closely, it becomes evident that what is needed is not simply that all key terms should be equally represented in the annotations, but that they should be used in relation to one another. This way of viewing the terms is mirrored in the topic itself. It can be argued that one important way of showing that relationship is to use the relevant terms in the same sentence, or, in the context of this study, in the same unit of meaning. This only

A further examination shows that of the thirty one (31) times that the term 'landline' appeared, it was used in the same unit of meaning with the 'mobile phone' twenty eight (28) times. What this indicates is that of the few student teams that recognized the landline phone as an important component of their search, the majority of them also considered it

The following are examples of how relationships manifested themselves in the annotations.

**MP 17**: Relevant background information is given about how it [the mobile phone] has

**MP 103:** [The case study] is about managing communications repertoire in relation to

**MP128:** Also, this source presents information in relation to the number of households

It is important to note that at this stage of the analysis, no attention is paid to the nature of the relationship and whether the way terms are used in relation to one another, adequately serves the requirements of the essay topic. All that is acknowledged is that by using the

**Exhibit 3: Examples of units of meaning showing two terms in relation to each other** 

same importance in the constructing of the annotations and were largely ignored.

happened minimally between the term 'mobile phone' and any of the other terms.

important to recognize a relationship between the two communication devices.

made significant changes to people's lifestyles as compared to the fixed line.

terms in close proximity to one another, there is a recognition of a relationship.

which may be considered cell phone only or landline only households.

**7.2 Frequency count of key terms in relation to one another** 

Mobile phone 118 Landline phone 31 People's lifestyle 32 Change 19

**Key terms (incl. synonyms) Count** 


#### **6.4.2 Secondary level of analysis**

At the secondary level, the analysis shifted to the inductive and was purely qualitative. The codes generated at the primary level, in association with the key terms identified, formed the basis for making observations about likely strategies that students were employing to produce the annotations.

The above provided the framework within which the actual data analysis was undertaken.
