Qualitative Research Software C Candace Chou Ph D

Qualitative Research Software C. Candace Chou, Ph. D Department of Curriculum and Instruction School of Education University of St. Thomas ccchou@stthomas. edu Modified from Lyn Richards slides on “Computing Qualitative Research with QSR NUD*IST rev 4” http: //www. qsr. com. au/

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.

What are you trying to do? What sort of data? how varied? what is on computer? what can’t 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?

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

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 (N 6) or regular Word document/Web page (Nvivo) Determine unit of analysis (line, sentence, paragraph, or document)

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

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

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

What Software to Use? Mac Text Analysis Markup System (TAMS): Freely available for Mac OS X user http: //osx. freshmeat. net/projects/tams/? topic_id=2 34%2 C 97%2 C 858%2 C 853 PC N 6: evolved from Non-numerical Unstructured Data Indexing Searching and Theorizing (NUD*IST) NVivo: analyzes rich text and provides graphical analysis Free demo for download at http: //www. qsr. com. au/products/productoverview/pr oduct_overview. htm