The schools reported the tasks under each District priority, so these were kept as meta categories for the first pass. Within the meta categories, the tasks were open coded. Although the first two or three schools were used to establish initial classifications, the variety of tasks resulted in a constant increase in the classifications. The result was 204 categories grouped under seven meta categories. There was duplication of categories under some of the meta categories and some schools reported similar tasks under different categories. To reduce the number of categories, the seven meta categories were reduced to four. In addition, actions that were reciprocal were placed in the same category. Also, I was able to group the categories within the meta categories.
Using the revised framework, all of the tasks were categorized a second time. This was an open coding and new categories were generated during the second pass. After the second pass, there were 114 categories. Most of these were included in 16 larger groupings within the meta-categories.
Third Party Verification
A second person, the Control, was invited to allocate tasks to the classifications that were identified. The control was an education student, who had been a principal in a site-based management school. A third education student was asked to chose three numbers between 1 and 30 inclusive. The Control then classified the tasks for the schools that corresponded to the numbers chosen. The Control assigned tasks to fewer categories. Of the categories the Control used, approximately two thirds matched the categories used in the study. This ratio held for the individual categories and groupings of categories. The differences occur because some of the tasks are unclear, there are different ways of interpreting the task, and some of the tasks required a knowledge of district programs to interpret.
Clearly, a third party is unlikely to reproduce the classification of tasks. However, no new categories were needed and the types of tasks the schools undertook were seen to differ. Even when the categories were grouped, only two out of the three schools were using a similar approach to address a particular priority. Also, the pairings changed, not all of the categories were used by each school, and only one school used some of the categories. In short, a third party may not duplicate the allocation of tasks to categories found in the study, but the schools will still be perceived to be doing different things to achieve their results.