Kala,
No doubt you will get good advice from better qualified people than me about which packages to use. My advice is on writing up the data.
I have been conducting interviews and transcribing them - incidentally, allow about 8 hours transcribing for every 90 minutes of interview at least at first, assuming that you are a touch typist.
I advise you to insert your comments as you go along (it really helps to brighten up the transcribing process) but make the comments obviously different from the interview text (I use the word COMMENT in capital letters and enclose the comment in square brackets). Do not rely on different fonts - some qual software packages do not recognize them.
Be systematic in the wording of your comments, especially by using a consistent and coherent vocabulary when you inserting them. You can search for themes using word searches and be sure of a coherent (and complete) catch. This will require you to think about it BEORE your first transcriptions.
I use NUD*IST 4, but that really does not matter. Getting the text into a systematic form is the vital ingredient!
Charles.
-----Original Message-----
From: Kala Ladenheim [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 27 January 2000 14:43
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: ATLAS, nudist, NVIVO - which to buy?
I would also like any advice or warning out there.
I am beginning to work on a study of concepts of federalism. I plan to do a
series of interviews structured to elicit as broad a range as possible of
views held by U.S. health policy makers as to what federalism is; then look
at how these views appeared in the course of legislative debates on health
policy during 1995-1996 (when U.S. debated devolution in Medicaid and
enacted centralizing insurance legislation).
At this point my plan is to carry out an analysis of the interviews in order
to identify distinct concepts and typical words or phrases associated with
each, then search through text of the congressional record debate,
legislative drafts and other official documents, on-line documents, and
perhaps a news database to see when and how various concepts emerged and
retreated. (also, I will have on-line focus groups to validate coding and
generate hypotheses; this may also provide grist for the CA mill.)
I will want to do some free-hand concept development, will want to be able
to tag each document as to source, date, person and characteristics of
person--in fact would ideally be able to link files describing each person
to their documents--etc in analyzing the interviews. At the end I would
like to be able to present the interviews and documents as hypertexts that
can be retraced by a reader of the dissertation. I am looking at Nudist and
Ethnograph--based on your experiences, which (or what other) SW would work
best?
Also, would I need separate content analysis SW for the document analysis,
or do these packages include CA modules?
If you'd like to see the proposal, a zipped version (with instructions for
expanding) can be downloaded at
http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~kalae/keldiss.zip
Details are at the methodology chapter.
I would greatly appreciate any advice and guidance any of you can offer,
including suggestions as to ways to improve this methodology and
availability of SW. The program has not invested in qualitative SW and I am
having to convince faculty of the usefulness of this analytic approach. I
will have to buy this SW myself so cost--and student discounts--are
definitely considerations but not the only ones. I am a relatively
experienced SW user and am comfortable doing a little bit of applications
programming. I am running on a windows 98 system with lots of RAM, hard
drive, and the ability to burn CDs, which is how I plan to present the
data--in fact, my hope is to be able to re-package the work when I'm done as
a teaching tool for doing this sort of policy analysis.
I
-----Original Message-----
From: Daniela Huneeus <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thursday, January 27, 2000 8:28 AM
Subject: RE: ATLAS, nudist, NVIVO - which to buy?
>Harald:
>
>Thank you very much for your information. I a looking for a software that
>would help me analysing qualitative data related to media and mass
>communications and just read your mail for Brian. Daniela Huneeus.
>
>
>-----Mensaje original-----
>De: Harald Klein <[log in to unmask]>
>Para: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>;
>[log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
>Fecha: Jueves 27 de Enero de 2000 07:10 AM
>Asunto: Re: ATLAS, nudist, NVIVO - which to buy?
>
>
>>Dear Brian,
>>
>>just go to http://www.intext.de/TEXTANAE.HTM and find all information
>>and links to demo/test software downloads there. And: Did you read the
>>Weitzman/Miles book on evaluation criteria for QDA-software? Although
>>outdated in software description, it is still a very good resource (and
>>AFAIK a new version will be release soon).
>>
>>Have fun
>>
>>Harald
>>-----------------------
>>Dr. Harald Klein
>>Social Science Consulting
>>Königseer Str. 9
>>98708 Gehren
>>Germany
>>Tel/Fax: +49 36783 80284
>>www.intext.de
>
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