1. NVivo

2. ATLAS.ti

3. QDA Miner

It is not necessary to use a software for qualitative data. The old, mechanical way of coding and clustering is pretty much as effective as any of these posh soft wares. Be cautious as these soft wares are only tools for analysis, these will not do the analysis for you. For interviews, it is best to transcribe them and colour code themes and recurring words or terms. If you wish I can help you set the study up for analysis. I have successfully done coding by mechanical means for 45 interviews and hours of informal conversations.

I thought about simply using Word and Excel but then, 1 interview is 25 pages long at least, so I imagine it to be quite hard to in the end sort and connect all codes into categories etc. 

I thought for that this software would be immensely helpful as it gives a nicer overview?

Well it depends! You will have to decide whether it is worth investing time learning a soft ware for your data. You don't have to code for every line and page of interview. One or two close reading usually clear things up and you can clearly see threads of themes. Then you can start fine combing for more evidence. In an 80,000 word thesis, it is only possible to present three to four major themes. The rest will have to be left out for future publications. So I would suggest before anything else, give your data a close reading.

This is what I would have done anyway. But I do Grounded Theory and thus also mostly line-by-line coding for the first step. That way, a high number of codes will emerge anyway.. That is the problem.

I have used grounded theory for my thesis. It will not be feasible to analyse line-by-line coding for a thesis of limited word count. Trust me, I have been through it and I know that for rigor and validity you will have to work on no more than three threads of themes  however, each discipline and school have there ways of engaging with grounded theory. So it is worth having a chat about it with your supervisor. If that is Ok, can I ask what are you working on?

I would be interested in hearing about others' experience with using software to do the kind of line-by-line "open coding" that is associated with Grounded Theory. In my experience, these programs are a better match to a content-analytic approach, where a set of reasonably well-defined codes are used to label segments. Of course, those codes can be created inductively during the coding process, but the kinds of codes involved still strike me as closer to thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke) than the examples I see in a source like Charmaz (2014).

I am working on portraying a phenomenon from every angle possible, meaning at the end of the day I want to be able to present an integrated framework of a phenomenon that I currently studying in the field with the help of a number of qualitative interviews with different and open questions.

I would recommend taking a look at NVivo, which I've found to be very convenient.

I conducted a grounded theory study for my dissertation research and effectively used Atlas ti to assist me in organizing copious amounts of data.

I used Nvivo for analysing my interviews and can highly recommend it. In order to get started I would recommend training videos available online.

There are very simple and free or very unexpensive softwares. They suite the basic needs such as defining (hierarchical) codes, coding the text, extracting coded passages with references to the original text (interview/document). Although I have many years of experience, I often go for rather simple products. NVivo, Maxqda or Atlas.ti are often just overwhelming and require a lot of time until you master the software. I used to work with f4analyse, but prices have gone up, but check for free software such as QDAMinerLite.

I actually have decided to do a "simple" Word/ Excel analysis. This way I am able to reflect more thoroughly on the material that I read and I do not have to bother with different functions in such highly complex software tools..thanks everyone!

Dominic-I think that is a good plan. Classic Grounded Theory researchers typically do not use software. Barney Glaser feels that the use of software limits the theoretical sensitivity of the researcher. You do one interview at a time, code and memo, and derive your categories. Please remember that in a grounded theory study, you are not able to pre-determine the number of interviews, as you have to go where the data take you and until your theory comes together.

There is a lot you can do in Word using special colors of text etc. along with the more advanced features of the Find function. I've attached an article that describes this (it also includes some advanced material on creating Word Macros which is beyond my skill set).

My own approach to using Word is to create a Table with two columns where the text is on the right hand side and the cells on the left are blank for adding codes. Note that Word will automatically create as many rows as there are paragraphs in the text.

I used NVivo. I used for Grounded theory. and also for case study .  NVivo is used for managing the data, retrieving the data, coding the data, for writing memos and annotations (thoughts of researcher) and comparing and analyzing the data. NVivo is used by as many as 400,000 in more than 150 countries (this data is of 2009) of QSR International.  You could purchase for one semester only as well, so its flexible in terms of pricing. There are others as well such as Atlas but selection depend on followings

University agreements/license- Sometimes universities buy license and they want their students to use that specific software and that will be available on systems as well across the uni

Experience-  People who have used previously 

Ease of use- User freindly

Training- For example in few countries you will not be able to find trainers of specific software easily. 

I am attaching two pdf files which you may require. I will add in two separate answers. I do not know cant add with this answer.

Leximencer is also there but Its not recommended for Grounded theory. 

Thanks

Regards

Here it is . The first file. 

The second file. Thanks Regards

NVivo is a good choice. However, it is expensive. 

NVivo. It's good in the same way an iPhone is good. If you have any issues it will be super easy to find help with them. NVivo has quite a few limitations but it is the best out of the packages I've used. There are heaps of training clips on Youtube for it and its quite user friendly. It's good at helping you sort data into themes and keeps everything neat and organised. There are one year student prices that aren't too expensive.

NVivo is expensive but good choice.

I think you could use nVivo for Grounded theory studies (or indeed any of the other packages but my experience is mostly with NVivo): but Susan alluded to the problem with doing so.   Grounded theory requires you to continuously test and revise the meanings you ascribe to data as you move on.  You can do that quite well in NVivo as long as you don't rethink your interpretations and change the coding: but that is rather the point of grounded theory.  Constantly changing the coding in NVivo has two problems,  you can lose track of the original coding, which you should keep, and it is very, very time consuming.  Coding in NVivo is the most time consuming part of the process and re-coding everything multiple times adds enormously to the burden.  There are probably ways to make it work in NVivo but I haven't worked them through and I suspect they would be complicated.

Learning how to use any of the packages is also a significant investment of time.  It takes a lot of work and practice to develop the skills to use the software well.  You need to consider whether the investment of time is worth the benefits you will gain from using the software. Caution:  those who have invested the time to learn a package usually think the investment is worthwhile and extol the virtues of the package: but then if they didn't they would be saying they wasted their time learning it. 

Also, I agree with Amira, Leximancer is inappropriate for Grounded Theory processing (though it can be very useful for thematic analysis or content analysis).  However, it might be quite useful as a validation tool.   It derives themes automatically from the text so if its themes were different from your own, you might want to re-visit your data. You can also test themes or hypotheses against the text: but it is complicated to do and requires significant expertise and a sophisticated understanding of the software  Unfortunately,  Leximancer is very expensive.  I haven't checked recently but last time I did it was much more expensive than the other packages.

I agree with David Glyn Roberts that using any of the software packages can be difficult with Grounded Theory, due to the need for continual revision of codes as you move from open coding to more theoretically-based categories.

Most applications of these packages assume that you develop a structured codebook, either prior to coding (a deceptive approach) or during the coding process (an inductive approach). These kinds of codebooks are inherently part of qualitative content analysis as well as a good fit to most versions of thematic analysis. They are much more problematic for GT.

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65 languages to analyze data with. Multi analytic features. SaaS pricing. Very intuitive and easy to use. Graphic user interface. 

Have a nice day and good luck with your research!