Overview of Qualitative Research Software

Overview of Qualitative Research Software

Museum Studies Research Week

June 2012Simon Atkinson

CAQDAS

Computer Assisted Qualitative Data AnalysiS

Software does NOT• Do the analytical thinking for you

– (though it can do things that help you do that thinking),• Do the coding for you.

– You need to decide what can be coded in what way. – Some support automatic coding the results of text searches– Qualrus, after you have coded a passage, makes suggestions

• Reduce bias, improve reliability or, on its own, improve the quality of your analysis– functions that can be used to help improve the quality of

analysis• Tell you how to analyse your data.• Does not calculate statistics

– simple counts and percentages /some integrations

Software does• Manage project and organise data• Structure work

– Enables access to all parts of your project immediately• 'Closeness to data' interactivity (or not?)• Explore data - Tools to search • Code and Retrieve Functionality

– create codes and retrieve the coded sections of text,• Search and interrogating the database

– Search for relationships between codes,• Writing tools - Memos, comments and annotations,• Output - Reports to view a hard copy or export to another

package.

Atlas Ti

MAXQDA

Nvivo

Provalis

Qualrus

Transana

Web.2.0

Making a decision• What kind of

data do you want to handle?

• How much data will you be handling?

• Do you want specific annotation and note making tools?

• How steep a learning curve can you cope with?

• How much analysis time is built into your project?

• What local support do you have?

• How well developed is your theoretical approach?

• Do you have a defined methodology? (surprises!)

• Are you concerned with linguistic interpretation?

• Is there a quantitative dimension to your data set?

• Is this likely to be phase one of a longer research project?

Supporting yourself at a distance• University of Huddersfield

– Excellent range of explanatory notes and references– http://onlineqda.hud.ac.uk/

• University of Surrey– Training in a range of packages– http://www.surrey.ac.uk/sociology/research/researchcentres/caqdas/

• Choosing a CAQDAS Package – Lewins, A. and Silver, C. (2009) Choosing a CAQDAS Package - A working

paper by Ann Lewins & Christina Silver. The full version is available online as a PDF at: http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/791/1/2009ChoosingaCAQDASPackage.pdf

Web References

• Atlas Ti – www.atlasti.com• MAXQDA – www.maxqda.com • Nvivo – www.qsrinternational.com • Provalis – www.provalisresearch.com • Qualrus – www.qualrus.com • Qualvu – www.qualvu.com• Transana – www.transana.org