Hi Victoria,

My PhD thesis is related to disclosue quality in annual reports. In this context, I am currently developing a disclosure index for the evaluation of disclosure quality. After that, I will look at every annual report and conduct the coding. For reasons of validity/reliability, I have to document the coding for each report.

My first approach was to do the coding via MS Excel and a parallel pdf-folder structure. However, this is very confusing and errors may occur.

On a PhD seminar two months ago, I tested MAXQDA (see http://www.maxqda.com/ for a first impression) and I was immediately convinced. You can integrate the pdfs into the software, document every coding step (e.g., matching of specific text areas with your coding) and conduct further analyses (e.g., analyze frequency distributions of words used in the pdf, etc.).

If you want to have a transparent and documented coding, this package is a good choice.

Best,

Tobias

There are several software packages for the purpose you intend to use. The best known are MaxQDa, NVivo and Atlas.ti. They all give quite alike possibilities with several minor differences. I know Atlas best of all the three, however I've seen presentations of the other two too.

Basing on my own experiences, you can actually import all kinds of video, audio and text files. Within text files it is possible to count every word and code (after coding). There is also autocoding function. What is even more important - you can analyse your own notes and codes too (equally with original text).

Atlas (but all of them actually do this) gives you oportunity to build visualisation of the model of realtions between all codes. You can compare them on logic, semantic and structural levels. There is even more, but you would have to specify your expectations more clearly :).

We used Atlas in our publication recently (check it if you wish, we built the model too).

Article Indian economics and Indian scholarly publishing: Is there r...

Dear Research Colleague,

You may explore the link http://www.content-analysis.de/software/qualitative-analysis for detail as trial version also their. Thank you

Hi, Victoria.

I used Atlas.ti a few years ago and found that its analytic capabilities were very good. I wasn't happy with the quality of the visualization output, insofar as the vector objects were not realistically editable in any other software. However, a look at their website suggests that this has may have been improved. Atlas.ti is now (mostly) cross-platform, which may also be a benefit.

Hi, Victoria.

I used Nvivo10 software, I think its easy and advanced program.

You can explore this program in this link:

http://www.qsrinternational.com/products_nvivo.aspx

I wish you good luck

Just be aware that no software will do the analysis for you! As opposed to quantitative analysis (i.e. statistics) where the software does the analysis. With qualitative data, you have to use your brain more :).  I have, like Qassim above, also used NVivo for my qualitiative content analysis, and I agree that it's easy to use (took a bit of time to learn and get familiar with) and has a lot of advanced features that I haven't even tried. But it's very flexible and fullfeatured. Basically, it's a great way to organise your data and keep track of all documents, interviewees, etc, so that YOU can then analyse your data efficiently.

Hi Victoria,

I've used Atlas.ti v.7 and I would strongly recommend it over the rest. This program is now also available for Mac. Atlas.ti is a very complete computer program used to analyze information from qualitative (non-numerical) data sources. It helps uncover and systematically analyze complex phenomena hidden in unstructured text or multimedia data. The program provides tools to create codes for themes, to weight and evaluate their importance, and to visualize the relationship between them. It really has never-ending possibilities for analysis and visualization. In any case, I agree 100% with Susanne Bernhardsson that no software will do the analyses for you! It is crucial to clarify which questions you want to answer beforehand, and then creating a good list of codes which will allow you to codify the raw information appropriately and afterwards to better interprete the relationships between them and so forth.

I hope that this helps. 

Best,

Dan

I agree with the people who say that Atlas, Max, and NVivo all do pretty much the same thing, with most of the difference being in the interface that each offers.

For content analysis, two other programs that you might consider are QDA Miner and Leximancer. In particular, there is a free version of QDA Miner Lite that is still relatively powerful -- you can see a comparison to the full version at:

http://provalisresearch.com/products/qualitative-data-analysis-software/freeware/compare-versions/

Hi Victoria,

Unfortunately for qualitative data there isn’t good software in opposed quantitative data. If volume of your data is high, you can use from MaxQDa for organizing the data not for content-analysis. If the volume of your data is low it’s better that do it manually

bes

saber

atlas.ti or MaxQDa

I agree with Charles Berg (atlas.ti or MaxQDa) and you can find explanations about how to use MAXQDA in you tube. or  Web: www.maxqda.com / www.maxqda.de

The programs are very similar. I have used Atlas.ti and Nvivo. Both are good. They are even somewhat interchangeable, as nvivo now can convert an atlas.ti project.

Are you looking for converting qualitative data into quantitative or to do discourse analysis kind? What is the format of your data- is it in text form or media files.? atlasti and maxqda are suitable for purpose. But depending on what is the kind of manipulation you want to do, you need to evaluate both. For example, if you are using media files then Maxqda will be better.

Depending on a project, you might want to explore the freeware options that utilize the "bag of words" approach, like Lexicoder, which I highly recommend. 

My collegue, Trevor Thrall, has compiled a useful list of available software on his website - http://trevorthrall.wordpress.com/content-analysis/

Best of luck on your project.

http://www.lexicoder.com/

I would go for MaxQDA, they also provide an excellent customer support and now it is also available for Mac OS X. The apps for smartphones they provide are good as well.

atlas.ti is from my point of view a bit more flexible in the ways of using it, but it lacks some concepts for mixed method designs which might be useful in future research for you. Cause the licences are costy, I would always consider the future use of a product like this as well. But I am not so experienced with atlas.ti, I haven't user it for years now. What I remember really usefully designed in this software was support for more than one screen.

nvivo is also a great tool, it has special support for video and social media as data sources.

but lexicoder is a very good suggestion as well, especially because it is free from fees.

I used Atlas.ti for the descriptive content analysis in my dissertation, however the software can be cumbersome at times. I had difficulty importing my transcripts into Atlas.ti. Whichever software you decide to purchase, be sure to understand how to use it. I took a course in grounded theory that included Atlas.ti, but I would have benefited from additional training on all the qualitative software available and how to use it. Good luck.   

I would also recommend another free program: Open Code. More information: http://www.phmed.umu.se/enheter/epidemiologi/forskning/open-code/

What a wonderful collection of suggestions! I'm so happy to come back to my question 5 days later and find such wealth of advice. Thanks so much to all who have contributed! My doctoral student will probably be very happy to pour over your answers and consider these most up-to-date options. Happy end-of-term to all of you in academic institutions (assuming your term is winding down just like mine)! VR

I am using Atlas.ti, and it runs very well (when I base my research on grounded tjheory). For a lexical analysis, I used an Italian software (T-LAB) but it is often unknown in international journals...Now I would want to try Lexicode. I downloaded it, but I had some trouble with dictionary. Some suggestions?

It depends on the type of research and the outputs you want to have. I recommend ATLAS.ti, NVivo and Dedoose.

I personally use ATLAS.ti, because it has some functionalitis I need, e.g. Co-ocurrence trees, tables, matrix.

I think you can see MAXQDA it is a program like Atlas ti and you can find many free tutorial in the enter net. It depend on you.

I found Atlas ti useful in exploring content analysis related topics both for qual and to some extent quant analysis.

from your experience , what is the best software for the curriculum content analysis ?

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