I just receive a nice and practical book Using Software in Qualitative Research by Christina Silver and Ann Lewins (Sage Publ.). It is about the whole process of choosing and using a software for qualitative data analysis. The following packages are considered: Atlas.ti, Dedoose, HyperRESEARCH, MAXQDA, NVivo, QDA Miner, Transana. The negative side of the book: you get more information than you want, the positive side you become able to make up your mind by an informed and responsible choice. Years ago (in the last century) I used Miles and Huberman's sourcebook, but I guess that one is slightly outdated by now.

One of the points for Atlas.ti is its perfect match with Grounded Theory. It was actually developed with an explicit reference to the work of Strauss and Glaser.

I found Atlas.ti works best for me, able to filter the data various ways and run basic reports for different groups, which allows for easy data comparison.  Good luck!

While ATLAS does name some of its functions after the equivalent terms in GT, I personally think that it is no different from either NVivo or MAX in its basic orientation, which is qualitative content analysis (i.e., mark and retrieve).

Most advocates of GT (e.g., Charmaz) still do at least their initial, open coding by hand. The reason is that this process can generate a great many codes, most which have unique descriptions. This overwhelms the standard software assumption that you will have at most a few dozen codes, most of which will be organized in a codebook fashion, where the same codes are used repeatedly.

I've never used Atlas but can find NVivo more than adequate for analysis of interviews, observations, documents etc. A very powerful tool which also allows you to transcribe directly from audio files.

It is worth remembering, as I'm sure you are aware, that any software merely helps with the effort and organisation of data, it does not undertake the analysis on your behalf and as such the researchers connection with, and handling of the data remains the most important factor of all.

Absolutely agree with Aled Jones that any software merely helps with organization of data. In the end, analysis is conducted by the researcher.

I have used both Atlas and NVivo and have found NVivo much more user-friendly and intuitive. If you are looking to compare consistency stats (e.g. kappa or percentage agreements) between coders than I would suggest NVivo. There is a way to compute kappa with Atlas through the Coding Analysis Toolkit (Pittsburg).

I would recommend either one of those analytical programs

In regard to NVivo, I think it depends on your data. It is more appropriate for 'case study' type evidence than a more systematically organised set of interviews. Its main strength is being able to tie together different evidence sources, including visual and aural materials. But it is expensive, slow and very time consuming, so only appropriate for relatively small studies (unless you have an unlimited budget).  

Hi,

I've tested both, and Atlas.ti (v.7) works better for me. It is a more complete program, allowing more possibilities of analyses.

Best,

Dan

I used Nvivo to analyse data collected from an ethnograhic work of a single case study. it involved aural, visual and notes taken from the field. I was able to use NVivo to code and merge all the various forms of  data collected while at the same time producing themes and categories that emerged naturally from the data. I found NVivo quite useful especially in the exploratory  case study research I conducted

I recommend looking at Dedoose software, which fits my needs better than any of the larger programs (Hyperresearch, AtlasTi, NVivo, MaxQda,) -- which I looked at and/or used extensively before switching over.  Why Dedoose?  It's user friendly, powerful, cross-platform, works great with team projects or individual projects, and can offer beautiful mixed methods graphs (quantitative variables that you use to describe your data compared with the qualitative codes you apply to the data).  I've been using it for years and also teach methods with it.  

NVIVO10 offers great options for qualitative analysis. Its power and ease of use are its main merit.

To make a well-reasoned decision, you can consult the following work:

http://medanth.wikispaces.com/Choosing+a+Qualitative+Data+Analysis+Software+Program

Dear all, thanks for ur valuable and insightful answer..really appreciate that..

Hi Muhammad,

I'd used both Atlas.ti & NVivo finding both of them achieving the same purpose of qualitative data analysis.  However, I found NVivo more user friendly vs Atlas.ti but this might not be fair comparison because I was using NVivo 9 vs Atlasti.ti 6.2.

If you want you can refer to this link for comparison review on NVivo vs Atlasti as well as other CAQDAS software (total 10).  All the best.

http://www.surrey.ac.uk/sociology/research/researchcentres/caqdas/support/choosing/

Regards,

Fung

I have used Alas ti 5.0 and it served it purpose because it made analysis easier, but now I am interested in learning dedoose software which has been given great reveiws

I just receive a nice and practical book Using Software in Qualitative Research by Christina Silver and Ann Lewins (Sage Publ.). It is about the whole process of choosing and using a software for qualitative data analysis. The following packages are considered: Atlas.ti, Dedoose, HyperRESEARCH, MAXQDA, NVivo, QDA Miner, Transana. The negative side of the book: you get more information than you want, the positive side you become able to make up your mind by an informed and responsible choice. Years ago (in the last century) I used Miles and Huberman's sourcebook, but I guess that one is slightly outdated by now.

Try QDA Miner. It's a user-friendly software and offers more computer assistance for coding and advanced analysis features. You can download a 30 day trial version form here:  http://provalisresearch.com/downloads/trial-versions/. There is also a free version, that you can download from here: http://provalisresearch.com/products/qualitative-data-analysis-software/freeware/

Considering that you want to work in a grounded theory frame I would suggest atlas.ti. Attend one of their webinars they will give you a good start.

I looked at NVivo, Atlas.ti, and MAXQDA for my qualitative data analysis and found the MAXQDA interface much more intuitive to use and it had more features than the other two.

I've used MAXQDA in previous water governance and social network analyisis projects, including my master's thesis, and found it easy to use. I'm looking into Atlas ti for my doctoral research, partially because of the significant number of references in the SNA text analysis literature.

hi mohamed

Atlat.it do support arabic , alla others do not.

Hello Muhammad Amsal Sahban,

As the researchers mentioned above, there are some software packages to do qualitative analysis including Nvivo, Atlas.ti, MAXQDA..... Each of which has some pros and cons. For example for second languages (Like Farsi), Nvivo is useless, even it has strong capabilities in terms of operating on coding or photos and videos. I have used both Nvivo and MAXQDA . Nvivo is good for languages that alphabets are like English language and MAXQDA is very nice for those languages that their alphabets are not similar to English language.

Considering my experiences in MAXQDA, coding (open coding, substantial coding,...) to create the themes are visible in the desktop window, you can see all that you have done (I think like Atlas.ti). However in Nvivo (any version 9,10,..) the coding are in the back and are not visible. Additionally, in Nvivo there are so many smart capabilities such as accessibility to previous coding and creating Excel files, and drawing the model. Coding with MAXQDA is so easy for beginners; however, coding with is so boring due to so many times to activate the previous codes to create new codes and then deactivate them again.

Anyway, I recommended these two software packages based on my experiences; coding with MAXQDA 10 is much easier due to drag the text in the documents and pictures to previous codes that already were created. I suggest to use MAXQDA 10 for beginners. MAXQDA 12 has options for coding audio and video files as well.

Hope this helps,

Best,

Atlas.ti offers a month free trial....!

The best one is the free or inexpensive one. All of them make same work.

I will go for ATLAS.ti because of its wide applications and cost effectiveness.