Spirituality Studies 127 Lucie Chocholová articulated. These dynamics were considered during both moderation and analysis. To mitigate potential imbalances, the researcher invited contributions from each participant and used follow-up prompts to encourage clarification and alternative viewpoints. During analysis, attention was paid not only to explicit agreement but also to moments of hesitation, qualification, or subtle divergence, which may indicate underlying tensions in how participants negotiate professional identity and spirituality. The findings are therefore interpreted as experiential accounts articulated within an interactional context, rather than as isolated individual testimonies. This study was also used to learn methods for conducting a group discussion and to evaluate it using the IPA method. The attained skills and know-how will be used in a follow-on study, the design of which will be introduced at a later time. 4.4 Data analysis The methods used for examining, identifying, and presenting data followed the recommendations of Pietkiewicz and Smith (2014, 11–13). First, the researcher repeatedly read the discussion transcript and made detailed notes focusing on descriptive, linguistic, and conceptual aspects of the data. This stage of analysis aimed to develop familiarity with the participants’ accounts and the interactional dynamics of the discussion. The notes included observations on the content of the statements, the language that participants used, and initial interpretive reflections on how meanings were expressed and negotiated within the conversation. Then, an inductive approach was used to develop emergent themes from notable experiential units within the data. These preliminary codes were developed from the exploratory notes and captured meaningful experiential units within the participants’ statements. In accordance with the interpretive orientation of IPA, the coding process did not aim merely to summarize participants’ statements but also to identify how participants constructed meanings around the discussed topics. To organize and classify the data, the study used Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word. An Excel spreadsheet was structured to maintain a clear audit trail, linking verbatim extracts in the first column directly to exploratory comments in the second column, and subsequent emergent themes in the third column. Although no dedicated qualitative data analysis software was employed, the manual coding process enabled close engagement with the relatively small dataset typical of an IPA pilot study. During the coding process, a provisional map was created that demonstrated contrasting viewpoints across the themes, such as “I share this opinion” versus “I don’t think so” (Švaříček and Šeďová 2014). This stage facilitated the identification of patterns of agreement, qualification, and tension within the group discussion. The researcher then iteratively examined relationships among the established codes to group them and delineate central themes and subthemes, ensuring that every higher-level theme remained grounded in the participants’ original language. This stage required transitioning from descriptive coding to more interpretive thematic grouping, in which the researcher clustered related codes into broader conceptual patterns. References to spirituality were identified inductively through participants’ own language when they spoke about tradition, meaning, ethical responsibility, philosophical grounding, inner experience, or perceived depth of practice. The analysis explored how participants framed, emphasized, minimized, or reinterpreted spiritual dimensions within their professional narratives. Through this constant comparison of codes, a final typological distinction – comprising the typological dimensions of philosophical-traditional, experiential-reflective, and ethical-relational – was developed to clarify recurring patterns in the articulation of spirituality. Consistent with the interactional character of the data, particular attention was paid not only to the semantic content of statements but also to participants’ interactional positioning within the group discussion. Moments of alignment, qualification, hesitation, or divergence were analyzed as potential indicators of how meanings were negotiated and co-constructed in context. This sensitivity to interaction helped capture not only individual experiential accounts but also how participants refined or challenged their own interpretations in response to others. The procedure and results were consulted with Hana Válková, an expert in sport psychology with extensive experience in analyzing qualitative data using IPA and other methods. This consultation served to enhance analytical
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