Qualitative Research Software

1
Qualitative Research Software

• C. Candace Chou, Ph.D
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction
• School of Education
• University of St. Thomas
• ccchou_at_stthomas.edu
• Modified from Lyn Richards slides on Computing
  Qualitative Research with QSR NUDIST rev4
• http//www.qsr.com.au/

2
What do qualitative researchers want to do with
data?

• What sort of questions?
• Theory-seeking, making-sense, pattern-finding.
• What sort of data exploration?
• Managing complexity, bringing in context, showing
  diversity.
• What sort of answers?
• Rigorously argued, vividly illustrated, exploring
  alternatives, justifying claims.

3
What are you trying to do?

• What sort of data?
• how varied?
• what is on computer?
• what cant go on?

• What do you want to do with the data?
• how to manage it?
• how to store it?
• how to search it?
• code it? How?

4
Questions to Ask Before The Coding Process

• Theoretical Framework
• Hypotheses or Research Questions
• Coding scheme
• Creative coding (free nodes)
• Descriptive coding (known variables)
• Unit of Analysis

5
Working with documents

• Why code?
• creative coding records ideas from the data and
  links to where they came from
• descriptive coding records things you know about
  people, sites, cases etc.
• Document Preparations
• Save transcripts as plain text (N6) or regular
  Word document/Web page (Nvivo)
• Determine unit of analysis (line, sentence,
  paragraph, or document)

6
Data Types

• Interviews
• Transcripts
• Field notes
• Focus groups
• Structured qualitative questionnaires
• Rambling trains of conversation
• Compiled evidence and journals
• News reports, Web pages, etc

7
Qualitative Research Examples

• Online student interaction patterns
• Interviews with special education professionals
  on attitudes towards students
• Social construction of Knowledge in
  computer-mediated communication

8
Why Qualitative Research Software

• Hand-coding cannot handle large data set
• Provides more than just descriptive analyses
• Visualization of coding patterns and coding
  results
• Text search
• Auto-coding
• Cross-tabulation of multiple variables

9
What Software to Use?

• Mac
• Text Analysis Markup System (TAMS) Freely
  available for Mac OS X user http//osx.freshmeat.n
  et/projects/tams/?topic_id2342C972C8582C853
• PC
• N6 evolved from Non-numerical Unstructured Data
  Indexing Searching and Theorizing (NUDIST)
• NVivo analyzes rich text and provides graphical
  analysis
• Free demo for download at http//www.qsr.com.au/pr
  oducts/productoverview/product_overview.htm