NVivo for Qualitative Research

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NVivo for Qualitative Research

• C. Candace Chou, Ph.D
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction
• School of Education
• University of St. Thomas
• ccchou_at_stthomas.edu

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Topics

• What it is
• What it does
• What it doesnt do
• What kinds of research have been done using
  NVivo?
• What kinds of research data are appropriate for
  Nvivo?

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What it is

• A computer-based tool for qualitative data
  analysis
• Help researchers to
• seek new understanding of a situation, experience
  or process
• Manage and sort unstructured data
• Code texts, find patterns,

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What It Does and Doesnt Do

• What it does
• Search and sort text
• Link, visualize store data
• What it doesnt do
• Teach research method
• Run statistical analysis
• Collect data or improve the quality of your data
• Code or interpret your data

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Sample Projects

• Patterns of Online Interaction in distance
  education
• Perception of special education students
• Stereotypical images of minority groups in K-12
  system
• Literature Review
• Summary of arguments, Themes, Own comments,
  Quotations

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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.

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What are you trying to do?

• What sort of data?
• Observation, interviews, document analysis,
  literature review, field notes, transcripts,
  scanned documents

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

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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

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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.
• Save files as Rich Text format (RTF) or plain
  text
• Free download
• No time limit but cant save any projects
• http//www.qsr.com.au/DemoReg/DemoReg1.asp

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References

• Modified from Lyn Richards slides on Computing
  Qualitative Research with QSR NUDIST rev4
• Engel, C. (2003). Qualitative data analysis with
  Nvivo (http//www.stanford.edu/cengel/ANTRO/archi
  ves/000118.html)