Maxqda 11 Introduced

Simple emoticons of the five temperaments: Sanguine (top right), Choleric (bottom right), Melancholy (bottom left), and Phlegmatic (centre), with the new temperament Supine (top left) and Phlegmatic blends in between. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Exciting!  I just took a look at the new features of Maxqda 11.  It is definitely running neck and neck with what NVvivo is offering, BUT here are two new features that are very different:

1.  A cell phone app!!!  They are right--this is a first for the larger comprehensive qualitative data analysis software packages (There are apps, but not produced by these companies to interface with their products). 

2.  Emoticon coding!!!  I like this idea too.  Just as you can define a color for a coding stripe in some packages...now Maxqda lets you assign an emoticon as a quick visual reference for a code. 

Here is a link to the introductory video.  I am going to have to try this out. 


Introduction to Maxqda 11

Questions about archiving qualitative research data

English: Integration of Quanitative Data for Qualitative Analysis and Mixed Methods Research in a Web Based Computer Aided Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A friend who has been following the blog posts on qualitative research archiving, sent me an email with some great questions.  I am going to post them here and use them as musing points. 

A couple questions...

1. Perhaps I've missed it along the way (it's entirely possible!)... WHY is it important to and why should we archive qualitative data? For many studies, do the field notes and recordings of interviews/interactions and images and elicitations have meaning outside the context of the researcher/participant relationship?

 This is a very intriguing question...I would actually split it into two parts:
1.  WHY should we archive qualitative data?

For years, I personally have been baffled by the fact that qualitative researchers in many fields are tossing out all their data as if it would produce a deadly virus 5 years after collection.  This was not the case in anthropology where they were trying to salvage dying cultures...it was OK for them to go back again and again and save everything.  Whether or not their collections are archived kind of depends upon the fame of the scholar and the importance of the area they studied...to someone.

But, and I think it was in the more sociologically dominated area of qualitative research we began to  think with the medical model created for taking human samples.  You have a short amount of time to work with the material, and then it is gone.  So,it does emphasize, I guess the ephemeral notion of what led to the data...that moment has passed; it will never come again?   Maybe this is a part of why qualitative researchers seem resistent to the notion of thinking about databases? 

However, the people that pay for these studies--policymakers and government institutions have finally figured out that this is very costly.  I'll post some materials later related to recently policy decisions in the EU and UK and have changed the tide.  The US is also following suit.  

From the point of view of teaching QR, we have never had good databases of mature projects that we could use with students.  So, essentially we seldom get beyond teaching data collection 101...we lack examples of full projects to examine.  (And then what is a full project...the raw data?  Material organized in a software program?)

2.  and then...why should the data collected in the interaction of researcher/participant relationship have meaning beyond that point?

This is a fascinating point to raise.  There is a strong bias among many qualitative researchers in this direction--if you weren't there; you just don't know.   But if we agree to that point, then what can we ever know about the events where we weren't there and were not a direct party to the interaction?  I think there are different kinds of knowing:  primary experience is great, but secondary analysis has value too.  You shouldn't confuse the two; you would need to have some caveats about what one can ascertain from archived data vs data you collected yourself.  

Where would historians be if they didn't agree that secondary analysis of data can be useful?  As we try to make sense of Greek culture, for instance, we review the reviews of the reviews of the reviews every generation, persistently reanalyzing our interpretations.  No, we were not there, but we still have a lot to say about the time and place that has value. 

2. If it is important to archive our data (presumably to make it available to others???) how do we approach this at the time of seeking ethics/IRB approval, especially given that most expect you to destroy "data" after 3-5 years? What are the ethical implications of preserving and archiving qualitative data that in many cases could be tied back to the participant, possibly identifying them?

Well, this is the 1 million $$ question, isn't it--how do we do this ethically?  What does it mean to create a data management plan with intent to archive not destroy?  I think this is why we need to get in right now and start adding our 2 cents to the discussion.  I don't think there is going to be any going backwards on this one--the horse has left the barn--but we can participate in discussions about useage.  

Standards we might have to create include:
1.  How do we develop an informed consent process that includes the aim to archive?
2.  How do you scrub data so that it meets the standard of privacy you established with your participants?  What does that mean if you are archiving just the raw data?  the software embedded version? or distributed data collection that included various net-based tools?
3.  How might levels of permission be structured?

Is this mostly about "open data" formats or it is about access to source data by researchers 5, 10, 20, 200 years down the road?

[I had just written a great response to this and my connection timed out and I lost it...here goes again]

One of the very important underlying questions here is the quality of your archive?  What standards are they following?  Are they recognized?  Where is the data housed?  If you are an American and your data is housed in servers in another country--do they recognize the same standards you must abide by?  or visa-versa?

More to come on policies that are already changing our world on this topic.  

:)

QR Archiving: More Questions Than Answers

One of my series of twig and fiber 3-dimensional figures.

I continue to worry the topic of Qualitative Research Archiving.  I am that dog with a toy in my teeth, shaking it back and forth, up and down.  I won't let it go, and I won't let anyone take it away from me.  The more I think about it, the more questions I have.  I mean--archiving qualitative research materials can take you all the way to questions of existence (for qualitative researchers).  There is no telling where it will stop!

OK--here's an issue that has been raised about the value/non-value of the archived materials.  I will call it the "You had to be there" argument.  In other words, yes the fieldnotes exist and the memos, but these can never capture the full experience of the moment at that place and time.  This makes the researcher, as the embodied fieldnote absolutely critical.  As a non-participant, someone who is doing secondary analysis, your interpretation can never include these sensory, absorbed messages that only the fieldworker contains.  [Sanjek's edited volume on fieldnotes has that great article titled..."I am a fieldnote..."--you get the idea.]

Does this mean that archived qualitative research materials will always be invalid?  Does this mean that only the on-site fieldworker has the privilege to make sense of the material?  Should the fieldworker withhold her/his materials from the world in order to protect the world (and the materials) from mis-interpretation? 

A couple of issues this raises.  What about those senior figures who work with graduate students or other fieldworkers...or larger projects in which numerous underlings do the legwork observing and writing fieldnotes and someone else reads and interprets them.  This has been done for decades, and is considered a valid research practice.  Should we have been questioning this practice more closely?

FieldNotes in the wild (Photo credit: DragonGirl)

Another--what about this.  In anthropology, certainly, there is a tradition of archiving the papers of well known researchers.  I would assume that there are special collections of the materials collected by Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson, Victor Turner.  Are these invalid without the presence of the researcher?  Should others be allowed to read, study these materials, and make their own interpretation?  Is such an act a violation to the original participants?

Speaking of whom, what about the citizen ethnographers that Nigel Fielding from the UK is talking about.  (See the May 2012 issue of FQS for more on this).  If they are present at the same time and place as the qualitative researcher, and/or studying the same topic themselves, should they be able to file responses to the data base materials and interpretations?  Is this something like asking for a member check?  Or does this go too far beyond that?  Who would be allowed to file responses and deposit them in the data base?  What if cranks just started dropping comments in databases like they do in the comment box on Internet articles, etc.  Do these have to be stored or accunted for? 

If comments by participants are to be allowed, do we have to stop doing anonymous studies?  Will participants--like adopted children--be trying to seek out the truth of the studies done to them, so they can become engaged participants with the researcher and the data base?  Ooh...that makes the qualitative research archive sound a bit like a sperm/or egg bank...not sure I like that image! 

Another issue is the exploding use of data collected in virtual contexts--if everything is a stream of text--is there a "there" there?  Does "you had to be there" hold in the same way as it does in face-to-face exchanges, or is the technology capable of capturing the context now?  I am thinking of the MIT linguistic experiment into studying the birth of a baby's language (it is a TED Talk archived someplace.)...every minute of the day, from multiple directions, video cameras captured the life of the researcher's family and the baby's beginning sounds. 

The use of archived materials has a long and respected tradition in disciplines like history.  Silly historians--seem to think they can work with partial materials.  Indeed, I think they believe that understanding will always be partial, because you can never have saved everything, or know everything about an historical event.  I mean, "you had to be there".  But when historians say it, they mean it differently than the qualitative researcher.  They yearn to recreate that time and place to the best of their ability, but they don't fool themselves that they are or were ever really there. 

A major argument for archiving qualitative research materials has been that they are needed for training up-and-coming researchers, but if we believe these archives to be inherently incomplete, do we think they are OK for training purposes but inadequate for real (adult, mature, grown) research purposes?

That does force the question:  who will use these archives?  how?  why?  Will review of the databases of others come to be seen as a required component of the literature review?  Or will they be used as a quantitative researcher might use a cache of data, seeking out a database that is the right sample, variables, and questions to make use of for their purposes? 

Are views of qualitative research archiving going to be shaped differently in different disciplines?  Will anthropologists using the salvage view will their papers to museums (as happens now)?  But what about sociologists?  educators? Are differences of purpose, as defined by discipline, significant to how or if we should archive qualitative research materials? 

Are the observations or fieldnotes of a master something we should study, but discard the run-of-the-mill examples?  Will studying Geertz's fieldnotes be like studying his articles?  Or will technology make fieldnotes a meaningless issue in the future?  [See the discussion of the MIT study above]

IRB's and the ethical issues--Consent Forms, etc. are always invoked when you raise the issue of archiving.  It's kind of like the vampire sleuth waving preventative herbs around or aiming at you with silver bullets.  Can we archive materials that were not originally described as materials that were going to be archived?  If the informed consent form didn't mention this, can you do it later?  If the materials are suitable anonymized is this acceptable?  A related set of issues is--are some qualitative research materials so precious that we need to waive the restrictions and make sure we save them for posterity?  If a collection is historically valuable, can it be archived for its significance and provisions made retrospectively to protect participants?  Are some collections too valuable to neglect? 

Archiving qualitative research materials is going to raise many of the same issues/prejudices that the discussion of qualitative data analysis software has raised to the field, because, essentially, they are the same thing.  Qualitative data analysis software creates a transparent, portable qualitative research data base--it was the first digital archive.  The fears its presence created are, for all intents and purposes, the same fears that the larger movement toward archiving qualitative research materials raises for qualitative researchers. 

What is going to be the role for qualitative researchers in the future?  A group that thrives on preserving the contemporaneous...having to come to grips with the tentacles of the past as they are preserved in the archive?  [How is that for strangled metaphors about time!]
Is "You had to be there" going to be like our own version of Custer's last stand? 
Will we make ourselves irrelevant by refusing to stare down the danger...enter the cave of the beast? 
Are we going to come to be seen as something like "the old magic"?  [If you are a Merlin fan you will understand this reference.]

QR Archiving yes? But Qualitative Software no? What gives?

I have become obccesed with interest in the new wave of work regarding the archiving of qualitative research data.  Once, a UK/Euro issue, it has now crossed the pond and is coming to be a US matter of interest. With many major federal groups now requiring that this material be archived, it is only a matter of time before it becomes a necessity for everyone--like the development of the Institutional Review Board.

 I am working on this concern with Joseph Fisher, digital archivist at UMass Lowell.  We have been a great time talking to many people in many places about this issue.  We will be discussing some of our findings at the upcoming QSR trainers conference in Boston in early August. 

Archivists are concerned with the overall notion of qualitative research data, but as a qualitative researcher with interest in qualitative research software--I am concerned with the issues that this software raises for archiving, in particular.  I have been surprised to find that many of the same prejudices researchers hold about qualitative research software sans archiving seem to be translating into the archiving issue.  In other words, the archiving issue is yet another place where these prejudices can be voiced.

Louise Corti illustrates this concern (she is reporting the concern) in her fantastic article about digital archiving and qualitative research in FQS  http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/498/1072, the 2011special issue on secondary use of qualitative research data.  Some qualitative researchers, she found, have concerns about using qualitative research resources that are in the form of an e-project, the neat little digital package that qualitative research software creates for the user.

I have been thinking hard about this.  It seems that such qualitative researchers are concerned that they need to approach the data afresh, look at it with clear eyes, and avoid being contaminated by the views of others.  Some worry, I suppose, that the technical shaping of the software package will itself skew their understanding of the data.  They seek freedom from the shackles of externally imposed standards of organization.

Here are some responses I would make to these arguments.

1.  Qualitative research software does not force the researcher to look at the data in the manner that it was formatted by a previous researcher.  You can simply choose to look at the sources themselves, and ignore the codes.  You have the flexibility, if you wish (and have knowledge of how to read that software) to look at the codes, to study the memos, and hyperlinks, but that is up to you.

2.  It is a fallacy to think that if you are using qualitative data sources outside of qualitative research software that you are free of standards and technical specifications.  When you read an interview transcript, we expect it to have the question and the answer...right?  Well, that's a technical specification.  You are never free of those specifications--we need them because they help us make efficient senses of text.  It is also true that these specifications are always evolving based upon new concerns re: genre and standards.  It is the same in qualitative research as in other forms of literate endeavor. 

3.  If you were studying an English novel or novelist (as a specialist in the field), wouldn't you read the novel AND everything you could find related to its analysis and production?  Why is it different in qualitative research?  For some reason when it comes to our qualitative research data, it appears that it has to be in pristine condition--a fresh site.  It's kind of like a perversion of the prime directive--now instead of leaving the field untouched, the people in their original state, now we have to enter the field in our own pristine mental condition. 

BUT, it is not only the user side that has got to examine assumptions--there is a desperate need for software developers to step up to the plate.  By that, I mean that they must accept standards for a meta-language that will allow flexible use of their packages across platforms and into the future.  I know this implies added expenses.  But if this is not done, they are adding yet another nail to the coffin.  Stand alone software developers know that their days are numbered, and they must jump to the mother ship of the Internet at some time in the future.  As they make this transition, it will add to their usefulness if they can also demonstrate their attentiveness to the needs of archiving qualitative research data for future generations.

Qualitative Research Network at UMass-Lowell: NVivo Tasters

Image via WikipediaThe Qualitative Research Network(QRN) at UMass-Lowell has revived the "NVivo Tasters". 

We did this several years ago when we had a bumper crop of doctoral students in the Graduate School of Education who were NVivo savvy.  Our site license was new and we wanted to get professional development out to the many people on campus who had been using the product on their own, sometimes unsuccessfully.  We offered a  1 hour session with an NVivo expert to all takers.  Your expert would help you where ever you were--if was project set up, project reshaping--whatever, you had 1 hour.  Well, it was like potato chips--most people couldn't stop at one. 

That group graduated, and things moved on, but with the shift of QRN to the Center for Women and Work, and new NVivo savvy grad students, we decided to try it again.  We are offering 12 one-hour slots to any takers on campus.  Myself and two doctoral students from the Graduate School of Education are the staff for this. Once the word tricked out, the response was immediate. 

I did my first taster last week with two faculty members from the School of Nursing, and WOW!!  did I have fun.  It's dangerous to loose a data hog like myself on other faculty members.  I so love to wander in the halls of data as they are available to one through qualitative data analysis software.  I twitch and slobber thinking about the thrills that are opening to me.  I don't care what the topic is, I just want at their data. 

These sessions start out with a description of the project from the person who has requested the taster.  As I listened I found my eye continually drawn to the computer where I could see the data set up.  Usually I start by looking at sources--but the real piece de la resistance--is always the node section.  I can't wait to get in there.  In this case there were lots of a priori nodes...that had an implicit connection to the protocols...but needed a push to make that explicit connection.  Piece of cake. 

But this let me talk about node trees, shaping and pruning your tree.  I remind myself of my mother's TV repairman who was possessed by model trains.  I have the same intensity about node trees--mine and every other one I can get my hands on. 

The hour flew by.  I was so disappointed to realize it was over (though my faculty friend may have been glad to be released to process the whole thing).

NVivo Tasters have been great for introducing faculty and graduate students to each other's work.  As you are discussing the set up of the project, you inevitably open up many other issues--from the problems with recruiting, hilarious stories about conducting research, and the struggles with interpretation. Sitting together looking at the project that is visible to both of you (thanks to the qualities of qualitative data analysis software) is like sitting around a campfire staring into the flames.  You are warm, relaxed, and available to sharing about something that is important to both of you. 

Long live the NVivo Taster!  And Happy Thanksgiving! 

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. 

Discussion of NVivo Project with UMass-Lowell Center for Women and Work Research Associates

This morning I was privileged to be the object of attention of my fellow Center for Women and Work Research Associates at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell.  We meet on a monthly basis to discuss our research projects and learn from the discussion of an interdisciplinary group of scholars.   This is my second tour of duty with this group.  [Meg Bond, CWW Founder to Right]

During the first tour (two years), I was working on my Journal Project.  Thanks to this internal research support, I was able to conduct some very risky and experimental research around the integration of arts-based research and qualitative computing...and that work is now being exhibited, published, discussed, etc.  Centers like this are critical on universities to provide encouragement for faculty to germinate new ideas, take those first steps, and work through a project--the in-kind support they offer is every bit as important as a financial award.

As I said, this is my second tour of duty, and in this period I am working on the sexting project, a three-state, interdisciplinary study of teens and sexting.  I am the official qualitative researcher on the project.  PI Andrew Harris from our Criminal Justice Department joined me.  We described the initiative, showed the NVivo Project, and shared our notion of the continuum of what sexting means in the teen mind.

As I explained to them in showing NVivo...leveraging the transparancy and portability of this tool--and showing you what the coding looks like--makes me vulnerable.  Most people don't publicly share their research in this way, but its a commitment we have that goes along with using the software.  [It is scarey...a project is like the inside of your brain, it's like letting people into your file cabinet, your closets.]

Then the group asked us questions--really good questions (as they always do).  The group ranged from psychology and sociology to economics; there were qualitative and quantitative researchers.  They were awestruck by the size and amount of materials--number of sites, focus groups, students involved (9 schools; 3 states; 123 students...and that's only part 1...I know we went "data heavy"...but when you are a data hog--it's hard to set boundaries!)  They were pleased with the way we were building up from the emic perspective.  That struck them as important.  And, they asked for some things we need to dig for in the data to better set the cultural context for understanding the responses:


1.  What are the opportunities at each school to hear messages about sexting?  Where do they occur?  Are they in separate places or integrated in any way? 
2.  What are the school's written policies about technology use?

They, like the students we interviewed, had a range of views about what sexting was--"Is it this?"  "Is it that?"  Everyone gets confused, whenever we start talking about the project...but they asked very astutely, what do these messages/photos actually look like?  That's not for this study--we are looking at views expressed in interviews (and I hate to think of the IRB issues related to procuring young people's sexting examples...), but it was an excellent thing to think about--because that is truly where the rubber meets the road! 

Thanks to CWW for providing opportunities for this kind of discussion! 

UMass Lowell Emerging Scholars and Qualitative Data Analysis Software NVivo

Last night I had the wonderful opportunity to be present at an NVIVO training workshop for the Center for Women and Work's (CWW) Emerging Scholars Program (undergraduates working with faculty mentors).

My former doctoral student, Stuart Robertson, NVivo trainer par excellence, led the three hour event. It is so exciting to see our UMass-Lowell graduates taking on the qualitative research world as consultants, trainers, and leaders in the NVivo world (In addition to Stuart, Stacy Penna, and Cindi Jacobs are also NVivo experts working for QSR).

The software continues to grow and complexity but Stuart makes it seem so easy and natural. He calms all fears and answers all questions--but he was doing this even as a graduate student. What a gift.

I am excited to see undergraduates thrown into the NVivo soup pot and seeing what happens. It doesn't seem to hurt them to start their learning about qualitative research from this place--a software. One told me that he hadn't been formally been introduced to qualitative research before, but from figuring out the software he could extract the ideas about qualitative research. [This would be anathema to some researchers...but really do we need to have all that theory and philosophy before we start doing it?]

My two emerging scholars have been working for the last few weeks in the software...same way...here's what you need to do, here is how the tool works...and I wrap in comments about qualitative research as we go along. They don't seem to be the worse for it, and I feel like I am teaching in a very fluid and natural way. Focusing on the project (sexting) keeps us organized. It makes me wonder how could I move classes that are formally named "Qualitative Research" more toward this model of "do".

An exciting evening. But then any time spent with our Emerging Scholars is time well spent.

Qualitative Research Brown Bags on the UMass Lowell Campus

The Qualitative Research Network (QRN) on the UML campus is going to sponsor a series of brown bags across this year. For the Fall 2011 semester we are meeting the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month. For the first few sessions we are in Rm 513 O'Leary Library from 12:30-1:30 pm.

These are meant to be informal, not polished, opportunities to discuss research in the rough.

Our first presenter was Alan Williams from the music department. In addition to being a skilled musician and sound recording expert, he is also a darn good ethnomusicologist. We had a fascinating discussion with him about work he is doing to build an international group that will examine the dynamics of sound recording (something he looked at for his dissertation). It's so much fun to hear about qualitative research in other realms.

Coming up next week Tuesday 10/25/2011, Ellen O'Brien from the Graduate School of Education will be talking about how to use qualitative computing software (NVivo) to support undergraduate honor's students to learn to conduct a literature review and write academic papers based on that review.

On Tuesday November 8, I am going to be talking about the Sexting project I am working on and showing what an NVivo project can look like in a mature stage. I hope to be joined by some of my colleagues on the project...and our Emerging Scholars who have been working in the NVivo Data base.

We have two dates for the end of the semester 11/22/11 and 12/13/11 that I am looking to find presenters for.

Every time I attend one of these I get goosebumps again, to think of how many good and innovative qualitative researchers we have on campus. If you are in the area, come join us!

The Truth about Qualitative Data Analysis Software

Image by yorkville via FlickrI am up to my eyeballs in two very large sets of data--both stored in NVivo 9:  1) the Journal Project; 2) the Sexting Project.

The Journal Project is large with journal entries and photos of art pieces as primary items.  The Journal Project was a one-woman show (me).

The Sexting Project is an effort of a whole team and includes focus group transcripts, a literature data base, and memos from many people.

It's unusual to have projects in Qualitative Data Analysis Software (QDAS) of relative size and complexity.  From what I can tell a lot of people give up before they get to this place.  We don't have many sizable examples to look at, poke around in.  Thank goodness for the doctoral students I have worked with--and the projects they have produced.  That's given me a lot of ways to 'look into' the shape these things take and the ways they look at various points.

I was thinking about this issue this morning as I had my tea, and I realized that qualitative researchers who don't use QDAS think (this is what I think they think) that QDAS organized projects are somehow neat, streamlined, efficient, like an industrial kitchen--approved and 'up-to-code' (get it...that's a joke...code?!).

But this is not so.  No matter how many standards are set they tend to become idiosyncratic, individualistic, unique (inefficient).   The labyrinth is a better metaphor than the industrial kitchen.  Or maybe they are like software packages that have developed over time and has old code in different corners...and then I stumbled on what really seemed like the right metaphor:  a Victorian home with backstairs, window seats, and closets that are surprisingly large.  I lived in such a house as a child and the metaphor suddenly connected to experience. 

In my QDAS projects I have certain ways of putting things for reference.  I have redundancies.  I have shelves and furniture that I hide away in some pretty expansive closets.  I keep things I don't need...just in case.  Basically it is like me.  Like my office.  Like my brain.  

Qualitative Research in a World of Big Data: Debunking the isms of Qualitative Research

Image via WikipediaOK--I am going to take a flying leap into space.  Qualitative research had its beginnings in the late 1800's with the first steps of anthropology, sociology, and related areas in which non-numerical studies were being conducted.  As often happens in the early stages of a field, many of the conversations about methods and terms occurred in silos--disciplinary and otherwise.  Thus, ethnography was seen as separate from phenomenology.

As time went by and the field of qualitative research matured, more connections were made across fields, and yet methodological discussions were still emerging as separate 'isms'.  So now we have case study, grounded theory, ethnomethodology, discourse analysis, narrative analysis--you name it!

Today researchers, graduate students, reviewers of articles and proposals--try to sort out these various isms.  I have graduate students who spend hours trying to differentiate case study from ethnography in hopes of answering the questions of an ardent dissertation committee member.  I get email from fellow faculty members who want help answering a reviewer who thinks their piece should be described as grounded theory.  I know of proposals rejected on similar grounds--lack of specificity about the qualitative research method being used.

Over time, exposure to these various conversations, and most important long experience with qualitative research software--I am coming to realize that all these isms are bogus.  Yes, you heard it right here--they don't really amount to a hill of beans.  Rather they are artifacts of our colonial and post-modern past.  They were needed to flesh out the field of qualitative research, but we are at the point of a major paradigm shift which will allow us to consolidate these ideas and reorient ourselves in a more productive way.

The impetus of this change is big data, computers, globalization, and everything that is going along with this data revolution.  I am coming to believe as Tim Berners-Lee, the so-called founder of the Internet, has suggested--that it's all about data.

What I've learned from qualitative data analysis software (QDAS) is that these various isms are critical background, they give us the pieces that we can now ask about from a more synthesized perspective.  The question is not whether the work is ethnographic, case study, grounded theory, or phenomenology...those were the old questions--the new questions are more generic:

• What is the unit of analysis?  A cultural group, a geographic location, a case (meaning an event, a particular issue, an instance, a specific problem), a role group (teachers, nurses, etc.)...Does the analysis incorporate several connected units?  
• What kinds of data will I collect?  
• How fine or gross will my analysis be?  
• What kinds of sorting mechanisms will be involved--do I need cases and attributes?  Or will simple thematic codes be appropriate?  
• What kinds of numerical data will I be integrating with the non-numerical data, if at all, and how do I need to strategize my use of tools?  

Quite frankly--the isms of qualitative research--are, at this point, antiquated relics.  They are artifacts of the build up to where we are now.

I am often told that these isms are essential because they determine how I will analyze and what I will find--prove it!!  What the isms often mean is that my jargon will be different.  I will couch my presentations in different styles of the professional genre.  After having overseen many studies, I don't find that the studies turn out so differently because of the ism that is assumed, rather they turn out differently because they have a different unit of analysis, they collect different kinds of data, they rely on different forms of sorting, and they work at a gross/medium of fine level of analysis.  Seeking and creating patterns is informed by reading about various isms...but in the end it all kind of comes down to the same thing.

What we need now is to collapse the isms into a system that will place us within the conversations that are occuring about data of all sizes, all units, all forms.  The discussion is about data.  The discussion is global.  The discussion is jumping around in and out and making hash of the isms.

I've reached the end of my patience with these isms--individually I love them in their own way--but I (and others around me) are being strangled by the isms of qualitative research.  Let's take a stand against ism madness in qualitative research, and join the bigger conversation that we have been avoiding through our technophobia.  Come on qualitative researchers!!  

International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry...May at the University of Illinois

Image by Jeffrey Keefer via FlickrI have two program pieces accepted for the Seventh Annual International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry.  It will be held in May at the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois. 

Here is a description of what I will be doing:

7^th Annual International Congress on Qualitative Inquiry

University of Illinois—Champaign, Illinois

Thursday May 19-Saturday May 21, 2011

Friday May 20 and Saturday May 21

Illini Room B: 

Art Exhibition:  The Journal Project:  An Interactive Exhibit Bringing Together Arts, Technology, and Qualitative Research

This exhibit explores the split between technology and the arts in qualitative research.  In this study, 18 months of personal journals were analyzed in qualitative data analysis software and through arts-based approaches.  In the exhibit, social science posters mix with fiber arts (felt and multi-media pieces) to create a multi-dimensional approach to data analysis.  The goal is to demonstrate the strengths of both methods of interpretation and the ways we can learn from their interactions.  

Gallery Talk:  Friday 3:30 pm

Judith Davidson, Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts-Lowell

Issues and Practices in Arts-based Research

Chair: Liora Bresler

Participants: Donal O'Donoghue, Liora Bresler, Petula Ho Sik Ying, Judy Davidson

Discussant: Johnny Saldana

Overview:

Arts-based inquiry is based on the notion that the processes and the products of arts can contribute significantly to research. The concept of arts-based research (ABR) as a methodology, generated in the early 90s, grew and expanded rapidly, spawning distinct genres and communities. This panel examines various approaches under the umbrella of ABR, focusing on the concepts of relational practice, embodied inquiry, and ethics of self and others involved in documentary films. Presentations will also discuss the practices of cultivation of “habits of body/mind” for intensified engagement in conducting the research, and qualitative data analysis software involved in ABR.

Technology and Arts-based Research:  The Question of Aesthetics within Qualitative Research

Judith Davidson, University of Massachusetts-Lowell

One University Avenue . Lowell, MA 01854 .

Qualitative data analysis software (QDAS) has been available to qualitative researchers since the early 1980’s, but few qualitative researchers have made use of it in relationship to arts-based research approaches.  Not only have qualitative researchers using arts-based approaches shunned the use of QDAS tools, but the general consent within the field has been that the use of these technologies for the conduct of qualitative research, would necessarily be an unaesthetic experience.  Drawing upon my Journal Project (a study of my personal journals that employs QDAS and arts-based approaches), the work of Mark Johnson (philosophy of aesthetics) and Liora Bresler (aesthetics of qualitative research), I seek to develop an alternative perspective that joins technology and arts-based research in qualitative research through a grounding in the notion of aesthetics.  In this way I hope to develop a discussion that will allow qualitative researchers to participate more thoroughly in the global research conversation of a digital age. 

You can get to the conference and the program at this url:

http://www.icqi.org/ 

Book Review

Image by williamcho via FlickrI have just gotten word about a new review of the diGregorio & Davidson text:  Qualitative Research Design for Software Users.  The review was written by Dale Frick and published in Qualitative Social Work.  My thanks to Dale Frick (whom I haven't met before) for such a thoughtful review. 

You can access the review at:  http:qsw.sage.pub.com/content/9/2/287.citation

Visual Memos in Qualitative Resesarch: Part IV

Visual memos are haunting me.  I'm looking back into my computer files and finding more and more evidence of them hanging around.  This blog entry is sharing another example of the genre.  This visual memo came at the end of a semester of my doctoral course in Qualitative Research methods, where we had created visual memos to accompany each data collection activity.  The handmade book I created blended visual responses, data collection activities, and the ways these were heightened by the Poet of the Semester, Kay Ryan.  Visuals, texts (mine and Ryan's), and the juxtaposition collage affords to make statements by disjunction and conjunction come together to remind me of the semester and help me to think anew about the pieces.

 

OK--sorry about the pathetic handwriting...it's the thought that counts!

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

Hmmm....it won't let me upload the last image, so I guess this is where it will end. 

I will come back later to annotate the pages.  My homage to Kay Ryan and to whoever else's work might be blended in here. 

Qualitative Data Analysis (QDAS) and Web 2.0: Which Way?

Qualitative Data Analysis Software (QDAS or CAQDAS) grew up over several decades.  Designed by qualitative researchers to serve the unique needs of qualitative researchers, it is fantastic stuff.  Each brand (and there are quite a few out there...if you don't believe me look at the list maintained on the CAQDAS web page (CAQDAS Networking Project)  does some similar things...and sometimes some different things.  What is common to all is the nice little digital container you get to store, organize, and work with your materials; a means of tagging or coding those materials, that is, breaking them up into small findable bits and pieces; and a means of reorganizing them, juxtaposing, linking, etc. 

But like much stand-alone software, QDAS is now having to face the challenge of Web 2.0.  They are not the only ones (consider Microsoft Word up against Google Docs or Wiki's) and you get the idea.  Suddenly the world is a lot wider; there are more possibilities; and potential gains and losses. 

As with most things in our technologically fast-moving world, the horizon on this issue moved toward us very quickly.  Silvana diGregorio and I published our book on QDAS in December 2008 (Qualitative Research Design for Software Users, which focused on a suite of well known software packages.  Since that time, we've become increasingly aware of the fast-paced change out there as Web 2.0 moves forward with new tools for qualitative researchers...and QDAS developers are pushed by Web 2.0 innovations in new directions to meet user demands. 

As a result of these changes, several issues arose for us:

1.  What do you call this new stuff?
Currently, we have settled on QDAS 2.0, which stands for the hybrid situation that currently exists while the field uses a mixture of both QDAS and new Web 2.0 tools that do qualitative research types of things.

2.  Who's Who is this area now?
Whereas QDAS developers used to be a cozy world unto themselves, the field is wide open now.  In addition to QDAS developers you now need to keep track of:

• the big companies in Software and Web 2.0 development.  (Google, MS Labs, IBM--and many more of the big, hardy group are conducting research and developing prototypes for tools that will do a lot of things qualitative researchers will like and want to use)
• Government funded research tools--pay attention in particular to the UK's Economic and Social Research Council activities (ESRC)  
• Wild West of new independent developers who are developing web-based tools and new Apps.  Take a look at Annotate, Ethnosnacker (where you can learn about the Everyday Lives application for the I-Phone).  
  

 As I write this, Silvana is in Hawaii (lucky lady!) delivering a talk "Using Web 2.0 Tools for Qualitative Analysis: An Exploration" at Hawaii Int'l Conf on System Science (HISS-43).  Good wishes for a great talk! 

I'll be writing a lot on the QDAS/QDAS 2.0 challenge in the upcoming months because it is so near and dear to my heart.