The data collection occurred in two phases. The first phase consisted of the administration of a qualitative questionnaire (using open ended or sentence completion questions). Questionnaire responses were gained from 91 BSR students, who had completed their cooperative education experience in 2011, (response rate 79%) and 18 AUT academic supervisors, (response rate 68%). Twenty-eight industry supervisors responded to the questionnaire (response rate 44%). Industry supervisors were drawn from the sport or physical education departments in schools and a range of sport or recreation organisations in both the non-profit and commercial sectors. As the questionnaire was administered as part of a larger study, the questions relevant to this paper were focused on the stakeholders’ understanding of the purpose and meaning of cooperative education. In addition, the industry supervisors were asked why they had chosen to host a BSR cooperative education student.
Phase two involved semi-structured interviews with a sample of participants from phase one, in order to gain more in-depth responses. Participants (six students, five academic supervisors and five industry supervisors) were selected from volunteers using convenience sampling based on their availability for interviews. The interviews focused on the following themes relevant to this paper: the purpose and meaning of cooperative education; the concept of cooperative education partnerships; and the nature of the stakeholder relationships.
Questionnaires and interview transcriptions were analysed using content and thematic analysis (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Data was coded and categorized by themes, using NVivo software.