There are well constructed softwares available, like MAXQDA or Atlas.ti, but this softwares are only able to support your work, but the demanding work of analysing the content of your material you have to do by your own. I advise my students to use softwares and to invest the time and the money only if they intend to use the qualitative analysis of material several times.
Thanks Bettina Berger, you are right..... it is basically a job of a researcher as you have to use your own judgement while analysing and making categories of the responses.
I agree that the real work is that of the researcher in categorising and analysing the data however QDA software such as NVivo can help the management of this process. This software is particularly useful for handling large amounts of qualitative data, requiring detailed analysis.
I don't entirely agree with your comment "Quantitative data takes a lot less time to get results." This isn't always the case and depends very much on the data set. I appreciate that this is often true when comparing the analysis of a short questionnaire to a series of in depth interviews. However, the preparation of large quantitative data sets, including data cleansing, manipulation, validation and recoding can also be a lengthy process and this is before any analysis can take place. The analysis itself can be time consuming depending on its complexity.
I understand your sentiment but wonder if it may be an example of "The grass is always greener..." in the debate between quantitative and qualitative approaches.
I wish you well with your analysis and echo the view of Bettina that the more time and effort invested in the preparation and analysis of the data will be rewarded in the quality of your results.
NVIVO will help you form categories of responses. Qualitative data is very useful to generate hypotheses. For example, participants give information about areas of concern for them following a research protocol (barriers). They can also make suggestions on what would work for them (enablers). These factors may vary by gender of race/ethnicity. This software allows you to categorize by demographics, as well.
RQDA, an R Package, can be used for analysing qualitative data (e.g. open-ended interviews). It is maybe more basic than specified software (Nvivo, weftQDA), but its links with R is useful for quantitative/semi-quantitative treatment of data.
For anyone who doesn’t have money to spend in software, I suggest “Triddeux”; This piece of software has been developed by Philippe Cibois Honorary Sociology Professor of “Université de Versailles Saint Quentin” in the suburbs of Paris, France.
It is a freeware for anyone working in an academic environment. It is not as “sexy” as a commercial product but it has been designed for research specifically for the analysis an open short questions survey. The only problem for international researchers, it speaks French!
Could you please be more specific, Jacques. A (download) link would be really helpful. I can't find Triddeux on the net, meme pas si je cherche en francais....
You could try Atlas Ti. This software is very good for analysing text files, e.g. transcriptions from your interviews, and then coding responses and quotations. It also allows you to analyse graphic data, such as photographs. You can also try Nvivo. Learning both is a very straight process.
Verint has a good tool that I've just completed training on - http://verint.com/solutions/enterprise-workforce-optimization/products/Text-Analytics/index
Pr Cibois and Alex Auber : These two gentlemen know each other; Paris is village at least if you stay in sociology circle! But the two pieces of software are completely different. Trideux is text oriented and gives you a complete statistical toolbox.
In german qualitative research, everything (well, almost) is about Atlas.ti (http://www.atlasti.com/) and MaxQDA (http://www.maxqda.com/). Nevertheless, I only have second-hand experience...
Eben Weitzman and Matthew Miles published a book a decade or so ago "Computer Programs for Qualitative Data Analysis" They reviewed and grouped programs (including atlas ti and about 20 others) into various categories depending on what you were trying to achieve with your analysis. Atlasti, for example is classified as a 'code based theory builders'. Even if this book has not been updated, it is worth a look if you are trying to choose a softward program.
This' s my instructor opinion, she explain her lecturer (included me) in the class "qualitative research".
▬Human is the excellence tool of the qualitative research.
▬No software is better than human thinking.
Qualitative research is difference from quantitative research.
To perform qualitative data can't check only frequency data.
Checking the reliability and validity are difference, too (Triangle???).
Their are may secrete data, only human know in qualitative research. •Excellence calculating software• nor •artificial intelligence (AI) software• can't know.
Let's be an expert of qualitative researcher from human thinking.
I recommend webQDA (https://www.webqda.com/) that is being widely used in Portuguese speaking countries and different advantages over competitors: several researchers can work simultaneously and in different places and do content analysis of images and movies!
The Computer Assisted Qualitative Data AnalySis (CAQDAS) Networking project web site the University of Surrey has a lot of information about different qualitative software and reviews of several packages and information and help-sheets on using CAQDAS software:
WebQDA is a qualitative data analysis software in a distributed collaborative environment (webqda.com). In spite of the fact that there are some applications that deal with non-numeric and unstructured data (texts, multimedia), none of them can be used by several researchers in a collaborative distributed environment as the Internet can offer. The development of WebQDA will therefore follow the international trend of social software access. WebQDA will be especially useful for researchers, both in academic and business contexts, who require synchronous or asynchronous analysis of qualitative data in collaboration with other partners, from any computer with web access.
I suggest QDA Miner from Provalis Research. It's easy to use and offers a lot of computer assistance for coding and analyzing text data. http://provalisresearch.com/products/qualitative-data-analysis-software/
I have used Atlas.ti. It is easy to use, one can learn the basics in a day or so. A very nice program. Also allows one to draw a concept map of all the codes, making grouping in order to answer the secondary questions easy.
qualitative data such as speeches, extensive interviews, open answers unencrypted, the software are ATLAS TI XSIGTH, NVIVO., the problem is the evaluation of speech intentionality.
this type of analysis you mean?
ATLAS.ti: The Qualitative Data Analysis & Research Software
http://www.atlasti.com/index.html
NVIVO, Qualitative data analysis software, qualitative research, market research,
There is also a free version called QDA Miner Lite with limited functionalities: http://provalisresearch.com/products/qualitative-data-analysis-software/freeware/
You might want to explore the following Computer Assisted / Aided Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS):
1) MAXQDA
2) NVivo
3) ATLAS.ti
4) SPSS Text Analytics
5) Kwalitan
6) QDA Miner
7) Transana (include video transcribing capability)
8) XSight
9) Nud*ist
Also finding transcription software like "Dragon Naturally Speaking" is also very useful when transcribing from voice to text even though it is not a CAQDAS. All the best.
In qualitative research NVivo software programme allows researcher to collect; organise and analyse content from interviews, surveys, audio, pictures, videos and websites.