Dear Norchene

It is out my region but this may be help you 

http://www.bumc.bu.edu/crro/files/2010/07/Hesse-Bieber-4-10.pdf

Regards 

Dear Norchene, I would recommend using software like NVivo for category formation in content analysis but I'm unsure of it's value for theory generation.

Qualitative analysis is a critical thinking process.  You may use tools to help facilitate your organization of information, but without critical thinking, you will not succeed   This implies to me that "manual analysis" is necessary.

Interesting question.

I prefer a combination. Using software is just a tool that gives you information that can help you to judge a situation. In most situations you must lean back to the state of the art, your own experience and even rumours.

The best is to develop your own software together with very careful laboratory tests and not to forget field testing.

My experience is that it is always necessary to develop correction factors between laboratory tests and field tests. Of course a good sofware is then a helpful tool to handle parameters that is difficult or impossible to measure.

The following sources should be helpful to your topic, particularly: what software can and cannot do (Weitzman, 2000, pp. 805-806); and a computer package may be useful aid when gathering, organizing data and helping to find exceptions, but no package is capable of perceiving a link between theory and data or defining an appropriate structure for the analysis……(Pope et al, 2000, p. 115) 

• Pope, C., Ziebland, S. and Mays, N. (2000). Analysing qualitative data. British Medical Journal, 320, 7227, pp. 114-116.
• Weitzman, E. A. (2000). Software and Qualitative Research. In: Denzin, N. K. andLinconln, Y. S. (eds.) Handbook of Qualitative Research. 2nd ed. London: Sage Publications, Inc., 803-820.

Patton, M.Q., 2015. Qualitative research & evaluation methods: integrating theory and practice, Fourth edition. ed. SAGE Publications, Inc, Thousand Oaks, California.

Dear Norchène

Qualitative software tools can help you cope with the amount of data but the real thinking process is still manual. Please refer to Patton (2015, p. 500+) for a more detailed elaboration.

I used software (AQUAD) because I can code without transcribing first, saving me a lot of time that I can then use on research instead of transcribing. The factor speed certainly is there.

Kind Regards

Roland

Thank you very much for your asnwer. 

Do you have others references to justify your position ? 

Best 

For me software like novo will help to manage data like text videos documents and it can help to code the data for you in addition in qualitative research there is lot of data to manage if your sample size is small then manual is ok but sample is more than 10 then software is better

Whether you use manual of software, the analyst is the one who does qualitative analysis. The advantage of using software like NVivo is that it helps to manage and organise your data. You can code data with less stress and navigate between nodes easily. See this reference: Seale, C. and Rivas, C. (2012) 'Using software to analyse qualitative interviews', in Gubrium, J.F., Holstein, J.A., Marvasti, A. and McKinney, K.D. (eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Interview Research: The Complexity of the Craft. Second edn. Los Angeles: SAGE Pub, pp. 427-440. 

I prefer manual. Qualitative research is a beautiful process, and you the researcher do not want to give it away. It's ok to use some tools, but you should be all in in terms of forming themes and categories.

I share with you this reference : Weitzman, E. A. (2000). Software and Qualitative Research. In: Denzin, N. K. andLinconln, Y. S. (eds.) Handbook of Qualitative Research. 2nd ed. London: Sage Publications, Inc., 803-820.

recommended by Kenneth Lui-ming Ngie - University of Newcastle

and this is the second one : 

Pope, C., Ziebland, S. and Mays, N. (2000). Analysing qualitative data. British Medical Journal, 320, 7227, pp. 114-116.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1117368/

Thanks for all 

For qualitative analyse did you prefer manual analyse or with Software ?

It depends on individual researcher's preference, the researcher's competency in using qualitative analysis software, the researcher's age group, size of the research etc.  I came across some researchers just prefer to use pen & paper, some prefer to use Excel (to leverage on its strength in sorting, counting & color coding etc.), some prefer to use Nvivo, ATLAS.ti, MAXQDA, Transana etc.

Quality of qualitative analysis is very much dependent on the researcher's research skill set as qualitative analysis software is only to yield efficiency e.g. more structured management of data collected in place holders, fast & efficient in searching, counting, retrieving, diagramming tools etc. which don't automatically process your qualitative data collected into certain themes, concepts etc.  Instead, the researcher as research instrument needs to perform in depth analysis on those qualitative data & aggregate / summarize them into themes, concepts etc. 

All the major software packages are based on the same procedures used in manual coding: marking segments of text according to their meaning (coding) and then finding relationships among those marked segments (retrieving),. In essence, the software automates the procedures you would be using manually.

That said, I think there are two practical issues that can make a big difference. First, there is the amount of data that you have. If you are doing interviews, it is not hard to keep track of your coding across a few interviews, but that becomes very difficult when you have 10 or more. Second, there is the extent to which you want to do systematic searches on your coding. Without software, you have to keep flipping back and forth in your data, whereas the software will make this process much easier.

I started with manual analysis, even with greater number of long IDIs. It used to be very hard to keep track with all codes etc. Then, I discovered dedicated software: I work with Atlas.ti and MaxQDA (both developed in Germany I think). And I find it really helpful, especially with querry reports and mapping (or modeling - depending which software you use). Manually it is almost impossible to generate querry for codes including or covering other codes, and it is impossible for sure to compare (in percentage) similarities and differences of two (or more) coders' outputs. So, software is helpful - very.

If you are interested in how it looks - just search for tutorials on Youtube (MaxQDA have really fine short instructional movies).

I have made very good experience with Atlas-ti. It also presents a big advantage for team work. You yourself can return to earlier decisions. Team members moreover can check what and how fellow researchers have coded and commented. More essential than the use of software is the following: Never drop comment writing. It helps to keep track of your evolution and gives your approach the reflective turn which is needed in interpretive work. It is also a very good foundation for your final report writing.

Dear all 

I share with you those references 

http://www.ssnpstudents.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/coding.pdf

http://ie-scholars.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Coviello-Writing-a-Qualitative-Article-2014.pdf

Best 

As highlighted there are strengths and weaknesses for both approaches. From my view,  I prefer manual analysis, as using software can provide a narrower perspective. The consistent reviewing of transcripts helps to familiarise you with your data. As always, if you use software, you also have to factor in the time needed to understand how to use it. 

Since I have worked so far with data that I can manage manually, I prefer coding manually. However, where your data runs into thousands of pages, you may want to use a software although I still believe that you may still need some manual intervention for analysis.

When using software, the data tabulation needs to be formatted in line with the application requirements. Once one gets used to certain software, they are tuned to tabulate involuntarily based on the requirements.

 my dear, i agree with David L Morgan

Use SPSS software to analysis of all qualitative data.

Data should be coded properly and feed to SPSS.

We will get a qualitative answers.

Myself doing a lot of work on this as a medical statistician.

take a help from me.

[email protected]

Thanks dear all for your answers ;)

I think using both software and manual for data analysis have their strengths. however, I would prefer manual since it enables me to to do a meticulous data analysis.

No