While I often find that analysing text by hand is my preferred method, with large data sets, I recognise the value of utilising a qualitative research program such as HYPERqual, Qualrus, or NVivo. If you were to learn a new program today, which one would you focus on?
Variations on this question are common on ResearchGate. Here are links to two recent discussions:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_does_Atlasti_and_MAXQDA_perfom_in_qualitative_data_analysis
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Does_anyone_have_information_about_why_you_would_choose_Nvivo_or_Atlas_or_other_qualitative_software
In general, the four most commonly used programs are MAX QDA, NVivo, ATLAS.ti, and Dedoose (the last of which is ben-based, rather than a stand alone program).
Thanks so much David for the links to previous discussions. I'm particularly interested in people's experiences with Qualrus as it's noted as the "intelligent" analysis program
I did use Atlas.ti in my Doctoral dissertation. I found it very useful to a variety of applications. It is easy to use and to master because it is intuitiveness. I think changing from manual coding to CAQDA, is more a matter of understanding the pros and cons of each technique through the needs of the researcher and the subject of researching. There are for sure, many implications to each focus, thus, there is one that suites better to one type of inquiry than the other. So you need to find out which technique will provide you the better balance between pros and drawbacks.
Atlas.ti. One of the important point is that you use the software not only superficially, but you to go in the depth and will discover powerful tools the usual office software does no provide. Over the time, atlas.ti has much improved.
If you're working with images, NVivo handles them well but is not an intuitive program at all and support is patchy and quite slow.
Although I did not use it (no image support), Dedoose looks pretty good and it's in the cloud, so easy to use anywhere and you only pay for the time (in months) you use so great for budgets as well. http://www.dedoose.com/pricing-and-features/#
Qualrus has actually been around for at least 15 years, but it has not become as popular as the other programs. Despite it's claim to be "intelligent" it is essentially the same as the other programs. In particular, none of them will analyze the data for you. Instead, they are all, at base, systems for marking up the data (coding) and retrieving (searching) data based on the coding system.
FYI if you do want to examine a program that is somewhat different, you might look into QDA Miner by Provalis Research
Hey Anna! I've used NVivo and now Atlas and I find Atlas a million times better. NVivo has more functions (that I know of) re: images, spreadsheets etc but Atlas is incredible user friendly and great for use in teams. You can print off all quotes/chunks related to a code for other team members to analyse for different papers etc. Very handy. Hope all is well with you.
Great day. I have tinkered with other programs in class and at the university library, but settled on Atlas.ti. I taught myself using some YouTube videos, but I would agree with many of the posts, it is intuitive. Atlas.ti has been super helpful in my own ethnographic research and the Support team has helped in the past when I thought I lost data due to upgrading versions.
I tried Sphinx ;) It's a good tool (easy to use)
Nvivo it's very functionnal too
Good luck
I had missed a lot of these messages, so just now seeing them. Thank you all so much for this feedback! Great to know about the team aspect of Atlas.ti. That would be an incredible benefit. I will look into the others, as I hadn't heard of Sphinx before. Also, for those of you who use Mac's do you just switch over to a PC for this aspect of the analysis (for instance I understand that Atlas.ti doesn't work with a Mac)?
Atlas.ti is already working at Mac. You are welcome, Cohenmiller, good luck.
Nvivo it's a good tool in my opinion
sphinx could be interesting too ;)
Good luck
Thanks for these responses! Very interesting to hear about the various ways people prefer to conduct analysis. Laura, I'd be interested to hear more about why you like Atlas.ti more than NVivo...I've heard that from others too.
As far as I know, Qualrus no longer exists. It certainly is not listed as available on the website of its original developer, Idea Works.
I do remember Qualrus from when it was introduced quite a while ago, and I know that at the time I did not think that it was anything special.
It is very important to note that the best method to analyze qualitative data is the manual one. Software programs help the researcher to manage the data; they neither analyze nor interpret your data.. Yet, they can be useful, especially when a researcher has a huge amount of data. There are several software programs, but some of them, especially good ones, are very expensive.
Sphinx is a good one. Apart from this big data tools like R are also useful.
Qualrus...it works well for me and has earn much recognition in the field of qualitative research
Thank you again for these responses. I haven't looked into Sphinx yet so definitely a new one.
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