Six Semi-Structured Interviews Of Middle School Students About Their Sense Of Belonging

Data Analysis
After conducting six semi-structured interviews with middle school students about their sense of belonging, I used a combination of a priori and in vivo coding to analyze the data. Interviews were transcribed and imported into NVivo. The provisional/a priori codes included attitudes, school space, sense of belonging, school environment, relationships, teachers, project-based learning, leadership, and grading policies. Data was organized using NVivo, creating categories for each code and assigning relevant text segments to the appropriate category.
In vivo coding, on the other hand, involves developing codes based on the actual words and phrases used by participants during the interviews. This approach allows for more flexibility

• Sense of belonging is influenced by positive experiences.
In addition to creating a code book and using a combination of a priori and in vivo coding, I also employed several other techniques to analyze the data. One such technique was memo writing and annotations, which involves taking notes about important insights, questions, and connections that arise during the coding process. Memos can help to organize thoughts and ideas, identify patterns in the data, and generate new research questions. A common theme within the memos and annotations for the interviews were indications of “students speaking for each other” and “appearance of being satisfied with project-based learning over traditional grades”.
After code mapping, I used NVivo to create a word cloud (Fig. 2) as a visual to represent to most often occurring words within the transcripts. Perhaps most interesting to me was that the most often represented words were themes I had categorized, primarily relating to sense of belonging, friends, like, good. The secondary category of school environment was also well represented with words like grades, teachers, and help reoccurring.
Figure 2
Word

Students reported feeling more connected to their school community when they had positive relationships with their peers, such as shared interests, humor, and mutual support. These findings are consistent with social identity theory, which posits that individuals derive a sense of belonging from their identification with social groups (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). Middle school students, in particular, are in a developmental stage where they are forming and solidifying their social identities, and positive peer relationships can play a significant role in this process (Rubin et al.,