ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects on one such hidden trail, specifically, the questions faced and the difficulties encountered in the process of coding data in a case study of students' reactions to teacher feedback. In qualitative research, data analysis is a complex, analytic, and creative process in which some form of classification, or coding, is inevitably involved. Coding refers to the actual activity of breaking up and grouping data into categories that reflect major issues that have been identified in the data. Conventionally, this is a two-step process, with unitization preceding categorization. Several readings of the data led to the generation of a detailed coding scheme that could be used to code individual T-units for the function of a student's response. Having developed a coding scheme that seemed appropriate to my study, the next step, according to my understanding of guidelines for quality in the application of coding instruments, was to test its reliability.
