There is no best methods for analysing qualitative data. There is only the better or more appropriate one. It means that each method has strong and weak points when it comes to specific types of qualitative data. This characteristics requires you to choose which one is more suitable to your purpose and type of data.

Some approaches to qualitative data analysis you may consider to look at:

- Grounded theory methods, by Glaser and Strauss, Corbin and Strauss (1997) Charmaz (2006), etc. - better with interview data

- Thematic analysis by Braun and Clarke (2006) - generally appropriate for all type of qualitative data

- Qualitative Content analysis by UH Graneheim, B Lundman (2004, in nursing studies), or HF Hsieh and SE Shannon (2005) - better with textual data such as document, reports, etc.

- Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook by MB Miles, AM Huberman (1994) - all type of data

- (Critical) discourse analysis by R Wodak, M Meyer (2009), by JP Gee (2004) - social discourse, language, conversation, etc.

Hope it helps.

Best regards,

The analysis of any kind of qualitative data involves essentially the same methods and software, regardless of which field you are in. By analogy, you need to use statistics in the same way, regardless of which field you are in. As a general method for analyzing qualitative methods, you could look at Braun and Clarke's (2006) thematic analysis, which has over 45,000 citations.

With regard to free software, you could look at QDA Miner lite.

The best way to analyze qualitative research is by Chi square.

The use of the terminology "qualitative data" to refer to nominal or categorical data (and thus the use of Chi square) is rather old fashioned. In contrast, statistics are seldom relevant for the kind of data generated by qualitative interviews and participant observation.

There is no best methods for analysing qualitative data. There is only the better or more appropriate one. It means that each method has strong and weak points when it comes to specific types of qualitative data. This characteristics requires you to choose which one is more suitable to your purpose and type of data.

Some approaches to qualitative data analysis you may consider to look at:

- Grounded theory methods, by Glaser and Strauss, Corbin and Strauss (1997) Charmaz (2006), etc. - better with interview data

- Thematic analysis by Braun and Clarke (2006) - generally appropriate for all type of qualitative data

- Qualitative Content analysis by UH Graneheim, B Lundman (2004, in nursing studies), or HF Hsieh and SE Shannon (2005) - better with textual data such as document, reports, etc.

- Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook by MB Miles, AM Huberman (1994) - all type of data

- (Critical) discourse analysis by R Wodak, M Meyer (2009), by JP Gee (2004) - social discourse, language, conversation, etc.

Hope it helps.

Best regards,

Thanks a lot David L Morgan , Emmanuel Ifeanyi Obeagu ,Kien Nguyen-Trung

Based on objective only, it could be decided

Dear Robin,

We are starting to use Iramuteq as a software.

I like thematic analysis as well, and depends on the size of the text, idiom, and content it is interesting and fits better. Many of them are restrict for English speakers.

We started using this in over-indebted (which is a epidemic problem in Brazil) and to inspect the problem it was useful to do a thematic analysis in old fashion way but very well stablished (Bardin, 1977 - content analysis - Lánalyse de contenu in the original) and in a second wave we use Iramuteq.

BAUER, Martin W.; GASKELL, Georgs had an interesting book for different types of qualitative analysis using image, interview etc. And it was a manual that covers different types of analysis specially for images (VT, photos, observations etc). But if I remember well they don't cover softwares.

There are some interesting authors: Barbour to focus groups, Banks for visual data, Flick and Gibbs in content and qualitative design and they make an effort to organize "how to" books in qualitative analysis and some of them describes the use of different softwares. In Brazil we have Minayo that was focused in health, but she writes in Portuguese, so I don't know if it is useful.

We used before Alceste software but I really do not like the output.

Hope it helps,

Best regards,

Amalia

i have always done thematic content analysis manually. however, many researchers i know have used NVivo to help them and they have found it useful. i dont think Chi square should EVER apply to qualititive methods...

Regarding free softwares, you can use Microsoft Office Word and Excel.

Do as follows:

Step 1: Organizing data in Word

• Use it to contain transcripts, notes, articles, news, etc.
• Label each file with a specific code so that you can cite them in writing

Step 2: Coding data and writing memos in Word

• Use the heading function to arrange each of your file into specific topics - which help answer your research questions
• Each heading level should be created with different fronts, sizes, and colors. These heading will appear in the left navigation pane with the view function
• In analysing text, you can use: bold, italics, colors to highlight pieces of texts that have specific meanings
• To add note, use the comment function. Again, these comments will appear in the navigation pane.

Step 3: Summarizing, consolidating, synthesising in Excel

• Build matrixes including different tables in Excel. Each matrix is the convergence of different variables, such as gender versus the role in family division.
• Build each matrix in each sheet
• In each matrix summarise information from coding data
• Write notes by use the note function in Excel for each piece of data

Step 4: Writing story in Word

• Connect all the codes, memos by writing a story, answering all the research questions you have
• Story should include arguments, examples, etc.

See, you don't need a professional software to be a professional qualitative analysis expert.

Thanks a lot Kien Nguyen-Trung , Anjay kumar Mishra , Amalia Raquel Pérez Nebra , Vandana Prasad

Check this out.

https://ravens-eye.net/applications/laboratories/demonstrations/

Good luck and best wishes in all that you do!

It depends on what you want to analyze (data type); in SPSS there are calculations that are used as qualitative analysis