Qualitative Research Network at UMass-Lowell: Brown Bag on using NVivo as a tool for organization and analysis with undergraduates

Image by Imajica Amadoro via FlickrOK--the title is way too long, but the presentation was just right.

Today:  Tuesday, October 25, 2011 from 12:30-1:30 pm Ellen O'Brien, Graduate School of Education and instructor in the undergraduate Honors Program, did a brown bag presentation on using NVivo software to help students prepare to write their honors theses (or capstone projects).

Ellen described her goals and tasks for the class and the way it unfolded.  Her class is a cross-section of majors on campus, but without significant experience with literature reviews, development of a thesis or in-depth research.

In this course, NVivo is an organizational tool.   Identifying a topic and developing an understanding of its components included drawing or modelling a "web".  These were imported into NVivo and students coded the ways that each "webbed" their ideas, leading to a rich discussion of how they used thinking tools. 

Literature searches were conducted, articles identified, and uploaded into NVivo where students used the query tools to further refine their understanding of the topic.  [This is a great way, I thought, to teach about the query tools using a nice, relevant little data base of your own selection.]

It was interesting to hear how engineering students brought in computer models and coded them--adding a new tool to their arsenal.  It sounds like in her class she has been able to generate some cross-campus, inter-disciplinary thinking in just a few weeks.

Her talk led to thoughts about--how could NVivo be used to help undergraduates develop electronic portfolios?  How can we help faculty who are not qualitative researchers, per se, to use this tool for things that are appropriate for their area?  What would make it safe for them to listen and get the message?

An undergraduate was actually at the Brown Bag, one of our "Emerging Scholars" and she said that if she had learned this tool early on in her undergraduate career... "It would have made me a more rounded 21st century student."   She is now learning about it in her senior year and considering developing an electronic portfolio of her undergraduate work that could help her in her bid for a doctoral program.  She hopes that knowing this kind of technology will help to set her apart on her application for graduate school in the social sciences.  

The next Brown Bag will be Tuesday, November 8, 12:30-1:30 pm in 513 O'Leary Library and UMass-Lowell.  I will be presenting on the Sexting Project.  I have a special request to think/talk about:  How do you generate theory?  Join us--it's fun. 

The New Research Paradign is NOT Mixed Methods: It's Inclusion

Image via WikipediaIt's strange to wake up and think, "Oh, I've had a blog."  But that is what happened this morning.

I was giving thought to the wonderful team I am working with on the Sexting and Teens project...and that led me to thinking about how it was different in nature and quality from the structure and qualities of so many other research teams...like various kinds of research projects that try to 'work across the aisle' (as in mixed methods)...which led me to think about dissertation committees...and then that led me to thinking about  the work I have done over the past two years as an Associate at the UML Center for Women and Work...and now as a participant in their new Emergent Scholars program for undergraduates. 

What it brings me to is that I think in addition to all of the other revolutions our world is engaged in, we are also undergoing the throes of a paradigm shift in the ways we consider research methodology.  We are shifting from the old reality in which single disciplines dominated, hand-in-hand with single methodological approaches.  I find these studies to be, what I would call, descriptively based.  This is the world in which the separate divisions of qualitative research grew up--grounded theory, case study, ethnography, symbolic interactionism.

The new paradigm of research is highly interdisciplinary in subject matter, and highly integrative in methodology.   It is grounded in complexity and is what, I would call, as problem-based.  It requires far more community to find the answers--a community of researchers working in and with communities of users/experiencers.  It is driven by the factors that are driving so much of world change:  globalization, new technologies, new forms of visualization. 

Currently, we are passing through a hybrid stage that we refer to as "Mixed Methods".  It mixes the best and worst of both worlds. 

I think one dark side of the old paradigm is that it leaned toward the exclusionary--exclusion of other disciplines, exclusion of other methods, purism in methodological perspectives.  In this world, you were valued when you are pure.  You were valued when surrounded by others who are just like you.  When you leave those enclaves you needed to be wary...which leads to be prickly.  Micro and macro discrimination were prevelant around methodology. 

The light side of the new paradigm as I have experienced it is inclusion.  As a qualitative researcher, I feel included, honored, and valued.  I can be part of research discussions addressing a range of topics with a range of methodologies and I feel that my methodological approach is valued.  I can be expert in what I am expert in, and don't have to prove expertise in every other kind of methodology because to solve the problem, understand the phenomenon we all have to pitch in and bring what we have.  

This is not to say that single discipline, single method studies are suddenly useless or to be denigrated, but the ground is shifting under our feet and as research methodologists we will need to be able to enter these new environments.  I like the fact that I can be expert (a qualitative research) and be valued in an interdisciplinary group.  I like the fact that in these new environments the various kinds of blatent and less blatent discrimination that has been practiced against my kind is not considered acceptable. 


But this creates a dilemma...because now I also have to come up to the mark myself and practice inclusion, not exclusion.  This is a dirty secret that qualitative researchers would rather not say much about, but it is also there. 


Many, many thanks to the members of these research teams/groups/experiences that are inclusively moving forward.