These daily activities were derived from data analysis. When the data collection
ended the final analysis began. Patton (2001) states that the “investigator has two primary
sources to draw from in organizing the analysis” (p.431). First, I used the questions generated during the design phase of the study. Second, I used “analytic insights and
interpretations that emerged during data collection” (Patton, 2001, p. 431).
The core meanings discovered in content analysis are called patterns and themes.
According to Patton (2001), there is no “hard-and-fast distinction between the terms”
(p.453). However, the term pattern usually refers to a descriptive finding such as,
“Almost all the participants expressed a love of flexible schedules in the school library
media center.” While a theme, takes a more categorical form such as “flexible
scheduling”. Flexible scheduling allows teachers the opportunity to send children to the
school library media center at any time. Thus, the content analysis revealed a pattern of
participants loving flexible scheduling. On the other hand, “Dealing with scheduling” is a
major theme of the school library media program.