Teaching Qualitative Analysis Using QSR NVivo

This paper describes new opportunities for teaching qualitative research methods to undergraduates using software as a tool. The author recounts her own experiences and challenges using one such program, QSR NVivo. The account includes students' reflections on how technology advances the analysis process. Strengths and weaknesses of the software and presented and discussed. Key words: Qualitative Analysis, NVIVO, Teaching Sociology, and Research Methods ********** When I first learned how to do field work, I relied on a large loose-leaf binder, and I wrote down my observations in neat, loopy handwriting. I carried that binder with me everywhere, and I worried constantly about it. What if it got into the wrong hands? What if I couldn't decipher my own writing when it came time to make sense of all this? Initially, I also wondered about what exactly I should write down. Eventually, I found ways to distinguish between notes from interviews, observations, and my own thoughts and feelings about my research projects. Although I tried, I just could not keep those binders neat and organized--I wrote in the margins, crossed entire sections out, drew pictures, highlighted, and inserted pages haphazardly. Ideas were floating all over the place. Those messy, crumpled binders now sit on a shelf. I can not bear to throw them out, but as I look at the yellowing pages, I consider how the latest tools of today's organized researchers--laptops, PDAs--have shifted the way we think about our work. How has technology transformed the way we do qualitative research? Is paper irrelevant? Do computers get in the way of our ideas, our creativity? I have taught research methods about a dozen times and I find that most undergraduates consider the prospect of doing qualitative research both exciting and intimidating. Most upper-level students are already well-trained in quantitative methods as part of the curriculum for sociology majors, and our students were skilled in using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). It made sense to teach them to use software to facilitate textual analysis as well as numerical analysis. I wanted to reveal the mysterious process of transforming piles of field notes into a report by being teaching them ways to be highly conscious of research design and data collection, and to document their thoughts faithfully from the start of a project. I designed the Qualitative Analysis course as an upper-level sociology elective, and taught it for the first time in Spring 2002. On the first day of class I told the ten students enrolled in the seminar that they would be practicing the skills that many sociological and anthropological researchers use to inform their understanding of social life. The format would be a combination of discussion and hands-on activities, with topics ranging from theory to sampling to varieties of data collection. They also would learn how to manage projects, analyze data, and write-up results. Bruce Berg's (2001) Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences provided a framework for learning different research techniques. Students also pursued their own research questions that required reviewing literature and gathering observational data for a period of about 12 weeks. (2) They familiarized themselves with NVivo by using sample data provided by the authors, and eventually they created their own project documents. Learning objectives for the course included: 1) understanding how sociologists design and carry out qualitative research studies by reading case studies and methodological reference notes; 2) identifying and explaining a variety of research techniques including participant observation, focus group interviews, ethnographic field work, action research, archival research, historiography, oral history, case studies, content analysis; 3) collecting, organizing and analyzing qualitative data through in-class activities and independent research; 4) using NVivo software for textual data analysis and theory construction; 5) appreciating the methodological rigor of qualitative sociology; and 6) understanding and applying research ethics. …