Here Lyn that's a bit scarey - emmm the conference I mean. But I am
intrigued - can you give me more details cos I've missed the announcement,
methinks. And of COURSE you can give a paper in my session (!!!)
As for the coding nightmare - I totally agree - I think there is far too
much emphasis on it and one of the consequences is that you lose what I call
'the conceptual flow' - the linking between words and phrases and ideas -
when you print out a report from a node in N4 you get chopped up chunks - at
least when I was doing it manually I had to handle the stuff (literally) and
I feel that enabled me to become far more immersed in the data and open to
subtle patterns and ideas. The conclusion I have come to is that easy
repetitive coding stops me really thinking about what I'm doing. I work as
a consultant researcher now and am therefore operating under a lot of time
pressure and the temptation to whizz through NUDIST and highlight and click
until my hand falls off is always there. So I am taking precautions.
Again I agree with you in the use of Free Nodes - great invention - this is
where the real coding gets done, in the experimental stage. When I start I
only ever put the base data on the index tree - every other code stays as
free node until the end stages.
But IT STILL WRECKS ME HEAD ON A MONDAY MORNING. I tried to find an oak
tree to sit under but it's not much fun in February in County Kildare,
Ireland. I spose I'm just a whinger.
Thanks for listening to me gurn (as they say here)
Sarah D.
Verrrry interested in conference.
-----Original Message-----
From: Lyn Richards <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 14 February 2000 22:28
Subject: RE: Fw: two days of coding and my head is gone already.
>Sarah, if coding wrecks your head, don't!
>
>Or at least never code till it wrecks your head. Stop and write a brilliant
>methodological article about the challenges of qualitative coding and the
>ways qualitative software has skewed the method to coding! Or sit under an
>oak tree and think, rather than code.
>
>You've met the wellknown but little discussed problem I named coding
>fetishism in a pair of papers published in QHR. You message gets at its
>heart. How about proposing a session on coding at the University of London
>IOE conference on NUD*IST/NVivo in September?
>
>I think coding fetishism is possibly the worst and also the most avoidable
>of the dysfunctional unintended consequences of qualitative computing!
>Trouble is, that when you are starting out, everything seems important, and
>indeed may be, and if you are anxious not to miss anything, you can get
into
>a mindset of "if it moves, code it!" As you eloquently say, it's not a
>problem of software (indeed I found it worse working manually since the
>tasks were so grotty, and by the time you'd identified, copied and filed a
>page five times you couldn't remember why you thought it was an interesting
>interview in the first place.) But it's a problem of all software that
>codes easily, since the easier it is to code, the more seductive is the
>mindset ("not sure what it's about but if I code it at least I won't lose
>it.") Computers code real easy, and any good software of course will
>exploit this.
>
>We were very mindful of this problem in the five years developing NVivo,
and
>our goal was to provide a lot of other ways of linking data and ideas, ways
>the researcher could reach for in a process of thinking aloud (linking,
>editing, annotating, modeling). That does not mean you need to switch to
>NVivo; rather, use the N4 toolkit to create the N4 ways out of coding.
>Before NVivo, N4 had the basic critical tools for this - the mobility of
>nodes, the live node browser and the ability to memo. Here are my
>self-imposed rules:
> 1) Never think in terms of the final allocation of text to a
>"right" code. Make coding thinking-aloud, a way of expressing what you
>think is going on here. It's tentative, exploratory, as long as it needs
to
>be. So work with your nodes a lot, redefining, rethinking, memoing, moving
>around and merging.
> 2) Never think of coding as one stage - it takes you to a node
>browser that allows you to look at all the material coded at a node and
>*re*view it, rethink, recode. This means early on especially you can do
>broad brush coding, gathering material in broad headings, then going to the
>node to code on more finely into subtler dimensions of the concept.
> 3) Never allow myself to do uninterrupted coding for more than an
>hour. Because no qualtiative thinking can be expressed solely in coding for
>that long.
> 4) Use free nodes freely - a friend of mine invented the lovely
>term *nodeworthy*. If it's nodeworthy, (that means sounds like it might
>need to be a category in my thinking) don't wreck you head worrying where
it
>goes, just make it a free node. Drop out of coding later to play with the
>free nodes and locate them in groups or merge them (or delete if it wasn't
>really nodeworthy! How do you know? Strauss used to say, "If it matters,
>it'll come up again.")
> 5) If it's a thought, not an allocation to a known topic, don't
>code but annotate or memo.
>
>Hope all this helps. Been there, done that. If you're going to the London
>conference, and proposing a session on coding, please can I give a paper in
>it?
>cheers
>Lyn
>
>
>PS oops, be4 anyone asks for refs over the list, here they are!
> Richards, Lyn, "Closeness to Data: The Changing Goals of Qualitative
>Data handling", Qualitative Health Research, vol 8, no 3, pp. 319-328,
1998.
> Richards, Lyn, "Data Alive! The thinking behind NVivo Qualitative
>Health Research, Vol. 9, No. 3, 1999)
>
>
>
>Lyn Richards,
>Research Professor of Qualitative Methodology, University of Western
>Sydney,
>Director, Research Services, Qualitative Solutions and Research.
>(email) [log in to unmask]
>(Ph) +61 3 9459 1699 (Fax) +61 3 9459 0435
>(snail) Box 171, La Trobe University PO, Vic 3083, Australia.
>http://www.qsr.com.au
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Sarah Delaney [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2000 4:25 AM
>> To: [log in to unmask]; Elliot Richmond
>> Subject: Re: Fw: two days of coding and my head is gone already.
>>
>> Aye Elliot but I am a poor veteran of both methods and they both WRECK MY
>> HEAD!!
>> By that I don't mean worries about not getting it right, nor using
>> software - just the whole process...especially on a monday. When I used
>> paper and scissors i was constantly chasing scraps of paper - now I am a
>> zombie in front of a confuser. On a Monday. Merely a declaration of
>> frustration
>>
>> Thank you for your advice - I am now calmer.
>>
>> Sarah
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Elliot Richmond <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: Sarah Delaney <[log in to unmask]>; [log in to unmask]
>> <[log in to unmask]>
>> Date: 14 February 2000 16:51
>> Subject: Re: Fw: two days of coding and my head is gone already.
>>
>>
>> >At 4:24 PM 2/14/2000, Sarah Delaney wrote:
>> >>This is not a criticism of any software package at all:
>> >>
>> >>I am just in need of sharing my experience of coding ...
>> >>I had forgotten just how much it wrecks my head.
>> >>
>> >>Does it wreck anyone else's head at all??
>> >
>> >I do not believe this is a software issue at all. Whether coding is done
>> by
>> >hand with paper, scissors, and highlighters or is done using a software
>> >package is purely a matter of personal choice and convenience. I prefer
>> to
>> >print out the document (with line numbers), code it by hand (while
laying
>> >in the hammock in the back yard under the big oak tree), then go back
and
>> >enter the code into the software later.
>> >
>> >Remember, you can always go back and revise codes, definitions, trees,
>> >memos, whatever. It does not have to be right, perfect, or fit the "big"
>> >picture the first time through. Or vnen the second, third, fourth, or
>> fifth
>> >time through.
>> >
>> >Elliot Richmond
>> >PhD candidate in science education
>> >University of Texas at Austin
>> >[log in to unmask]
>> >http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4758/
>> >
>> >
>> >
>
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|