Table 1.
Most frequent jointly integrated codes from open coding by both coders, with example quotes and corresponding interview questions (Q#).
Fig 1.
Schematic coding process in this study.
Table 2.
Main codes with subgroups, frequencies, and example quotes, providing insights into why each subgroup is associated with its respective main code. For example, public safety was mentioned seven times in discussions of participants’ motivations, as illustrated by the quote: “Ensuring public safety is my foremost priority in engineering decisions.” Note that the number of segments assigned to each main code does not equal the sum of its subgroups, as the listed subgroups represent key highlighted themes rather than all participant references within each main code.
Table 3.
Axial coding.
Fig 2.
The Ven diagram for the major codes’ overlaps; size of the circles relatively indicates the number of connected codes (e.g., code “Risk” has overlaps with 5 other major codes so that it is relatively a large circle).
The numbers on the overlaps refer to the following example quotes: 1. “When the project is authorized, it automatically has a lower budget estimate., then they bring it into designer and say, this was authorized, you need to design it to the proper standard, but we’re not going to give you any more money because it’s only authorized at this lower level. They don’t consult with all the local non-federal partners about specifically some changing criteria.” 2. “There are some public outreach meetings and check ins with the public, which is more or less controlled by the client. The client basically dictates what is the stage they want to get engaged.” 3. “The state of the practice is now moving to risk-based”.
Fig 3.
The flow of decision-making and risk assessment for infrastructure design.
Fig 4.
The interaction between community and engineers.