Marty - you seem to have answered your own question. Nvivo and Atlas are both fine to use with Mac. They both also accomodate the added complexity of coding within GT i.e. axial coding.

Marty- I have used Nvivo software quite well, and it seems a good software to use when using if for a grounded theory analysis. Although, i haven't used it on a Mac platform. But i think it is compatible.

I know of Nvivo although I have not used it myself; but I have heard it being highly recommended.

I second Dean because you have answered yourself. Both Atlas.ti and NVivo are good software; however, I'm inclined towards NVivo because it supports different data format such as audio, video, image, pdf, excel sheet,etc. 

P.S. There are other programs such as QDA Miner and MAXQDA but theses ones are not as popular as NVivo and Atlas.ti.

Good luck, Marty. 

Thanks everyone for your comments! They have been very helpful!

Two other options to consider are MAX QDA, which works very well on a Mac, and Dedoose which is web-based so it runs on any browser.

All of these programs have well-developed websites where you can view tutorials that will give you a good feel for how each program operates.

One other thing to consider, though, is how well any of the software options fit with grounded theory. Specifically I find that software in general does not work very well for the large number of highly descriptive codes that go with the open coding process. 

Thanks, David! That's good to know about checking to see if the software can handle a large number of codes.

They can all handle a large number of codes, but it is awkward for you to manage that many codes. I personally think these programs work best with no more than 40 or so codes, each of which has a short name -- and even better if those codes are hierarchically organized into categories and subcategories.

So if you have more than 40 codes, which is very possible in the initial coding process of grounded theory, how would you handle it? I understand that as you go back over your initial codes, you begin to create some form of hierarchy, but until then, what do you do? Or have I completely misunderstood you?

I would also recommend MAXQDA with Mac!

Here is an article by Friese that addresses that issue. She works for ATLAS, but the approach would be similar in any of the other software packages.

Thanks, again, David! This is very helpful.

I can broadly recommend MaxQDA, which is available for mac and windows. I haven't done Grounded Theory Method research with it and am unsure how useful MaxQDA would be for aspects such as axial coding, but can recommend it overall for qualitative analysis.

EDIT: I forgot to say, MaxQDA claims it can (be used to) manage/organize literature as well. I am personally not convinced by that and would rather use a separate literature management software like mendeley/citavi or similar. 

I have never used Atlas, but NVivo is great. It has not been available for Mac for very long, so I don't know if all the bugs are ironed out. It can manage literature as well as coding, and has lots of cool features and options for different kinds of reports and analyses.

I have used NVivo for thematic analysis, and it is fairly good, but a bit frustrating at times. I did once have a problem with NVivo not saving a day's analysis, which was quite worrying. 

Something that is important to know if you want to use it on a Mac is that it's really quite hard to transfer an NVivo project back and forth between Macs and PCs - something that could make your life quite hard if (for example) your supervisor uses a PC. I use a Mac at home and a PC at work, which means it's very difficult for me to work from home on any NVivo coding and so on. 

You also can't open NVivo projects that have been started in later versions of the program (ie NVivo 11) in earlier versions (ie NVivo 10), so do make sure that everyone who needs to open the project has the same version. 

I've not ever used Atlas, but it would be worth checking those points out - if it's easier to move between Macs and PCs on Atlas, it might be a better bet for you. 

Good luck!

Thanks, Johanna! Very good points to be thinking about. And thanks again to everyone who has responded. This has been very helpful.

atlas.ti is very close to GTM logics.

Also remember that, whatever IT data-management package that you might use, it will only do just that--manage your data; it wont do the coding and analysis for you---that's down to you. In this respect, you could even use a word-processing application.

Thus, I think that a more helpful suggestion is that you decide on which 'version' of Grounded Theory accords with your 'style' as a researcher.

By all means though, if you think it suits, use one of the software packages suggested above----for data-management.

It might also be useful to be mindful of the IT adage GIGO--(garbage in/garbage out).

Hope these few words are helpful to.

Thanks, Philip! I do think I know which version of GT I plan to use, although I still want to do more reading. I've been wondering about how to manage that balance between reliance on the software and reliance on analytical and intuitive skills. I can see how diagrams and clustering categories and memos will be helpful but not sure whether software or my dining room table are better for that. Still much to learn about software packages. That's one of my tasks during my winter break.

Have a look at Kathy Charmaz's Constructivist Grounded Theory:  Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide Through Qualitative Analysis, 2nd. ed. (2014) or 1st. ed. (2006); personally, I think that Charmaz's implementation is easiest (though other Grounded Theorists may 'pick holes' in it in favour of their own implementation---e.g. Glaser, Corbin and Strauss, Thornberg etc.).

Use atlas.ti. Though I always worked with the windows version, I know that there is an mac version. atlas was from the very beginning onwards based on GT, but it is still flexible enough to be adapted to your decisions and options. Susanne Friese's book of is most helpful: Qualitative Data Analysis with ATLAS.ti . Meanwhile I guess there is a second edition. GT is a complex corpus of procedures and methods, you cannot opt for one verson like in the shelves of a supermarket.

Philip -I am working my way through Charmaz's book and love how she explains GT. Charles - thanks for that book suggestion. I'll add it to my Amazon list. I'm beginning to realize that GT offers many possible approaches that can be integrated in a variety of ways.

Charles, with respect, I'd take issue with your view on GT;  using this methodology can be complex, but needn't be, depending on which 'version' that you follow.

You actually can opt for one version like in the shelves of a supermarket--with the proviso that doing GT involves including certain core elements across-the-board.

I am dubious about either of the claims that one form of Grounded Theory is easier to perform, or that one piece of software is better suited to GT than another.

On the first point, all versions of GT start with some version of open coding and require that data collection procedures evolve as a result of ongoing analysis. Beyond that, they assign a variety of names to the additional coding procedures (focal coding, axial coding, etc.) but the difference is most in the labels rather than the actual steps involved. I am not disputing that there are meaningful differences among the different versions, but at the level of the work you need to do, they are more similar than they are different.

With regard to the suitability of different software programs, ATLAS initially made claims that it was matched to GT, but this was mostly on the surface -- and some of those claims were just plain wrong (e.g., rating the "groundedness" of codes based on how frequently they occurred). I have used most of the major packages and they are each based on the same two-part strategy: marking segments of data (i.e., coding) and retrieving segments of data according to how they were marked (i.e., searching). As far as I can tell, no one of them is any more (or less) useful for GT.

I have used the MAXQDA software. It is a simple and good software for qualitative data analysis and management.

I use Dedoose for my qualitative data analysis. It is an online, cloud-based software program so you can complete data collection in any computer. You can visit their website: http://dedoose.com/ for more information. 

Thanks, Rhea. I will check that out as well.

I agree that existing GT versions, in terms of the core work needed to be done, are more similar than different; but those small differences between each are, I think, what makes one particular implementation of GT attractive to a researcher rather than another; for instance, I find Glaser's implementation pedantic, Corbin and Strauss  less so, while Charmaz's text resonates with me, hence, I prefer her implementation.

I used both NVivo and MaxQDA on my Mac&. 1 year ago NVivo had a limited functionality on Mac. Maybe they fixed it now, not sure. I personally find MaxQDA works better on Mac, it was designed for Mac. It has also a mobile app that helps to collect and organise different types of data on the go and facilitates group work.

Thanks, Nataliya! That was very helpful.

Nvivo works very well and is easy to use and data is organized into nodes . However, a  lot more thinking is required in order to deduce merging themes and concepts using the GT approcah.