Thank you so much to the many colleagues from the listervs gem, museum-ed,
and vsmus who took the time to answer my query! The following is an edited
summary of responses to the question:

__What electronic database do you use to manage data from audience
research?__

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SPSS

-  have just started using SPSS, but I have not got very far with it and
so cannot give you great on advice on how good it is - so far it seems to
work quite well.  I think that you can get a free trial. Contact 01483
719200 or visit www.spss.com/y2k

- I've been using SPSS for years to process quantitative survey data
(museum audience research studies).  The base module (as well
as Answer Tree ... neat evaluation tool for market segmentation
studies) has done everything I've needed & more.

- [Description of manual analysis ...] Had there been more quantitative
data and/or more
than say 100 questionnaires, I would have used SPSS and combined this with
a
manual analysis of the qualitative data.

- . . . For quick qualitative data treatment - the kind
of thing coming from open-ended questions in surveys - I have found
SPSS's TEXTSMART to be helpful. Data entry is easy for volunteers and
the analysis is straightforward. But, as always, there is tradeoff
between flexibiity, power and ease of use. . . SPSS also has a more
complex offering called VERBASTAT. However, the
pricing is obviously set for high volume research houses where money
is being made from the process. Most of us would find it too
expensive for other uses.

- I have used SPSS in the past and found it to be very effective.  You can
also use it for basic qualitative analysis if you identify themes in the
responses and code them.

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SURVEY PRO

- I've used Survey Pro before to capture qualitative
data.  It's okay for quantitative information as well,
though if you want to do some serious statistical
analysis, something like SPSS is much better.

- We use SurveyPro by a company named Apian Software. We conduct monthly
surveys of our visitors in the museum and have volunteers
enter the data, however, Apian has additional software that can scan your
surveys.. . . I have been using them for about 4 years and the software is
easy to use.
From creating a new survey to producing amazing reports, I couldn't see
using any other software. The survey results that we collected in this
software were given to an outside agency to use for additional analysis
with
an economic impact report . . . that we issued. They were very
impressed with how easy it was to convert into their software. And Apian's
tech support is outstanding! . . . you could contact Apian at 800-237-4565
or
at www.apian.com.

- We have used Survey Pro and have found it to be very helpful, though a
chunk of training time is definitely needed before jumping in.

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STATPAC

- . . . look at www.statpac.com - Statpac is a great program that I have
been
using for years in doing all kinds of audience research. It does great
things with both quant and qual data and is easy to use, but as
sophisticated as you want it to be. Data entry is a dream too, as you can
design the entry form to be as explicit as you want (i.e. to look just like
the questionnaire, to have hints/notes to the data entry person etc.). Even
totally inexperienced people find it easy to use to enter data after just a
few minutes. . . .And my experience with the support back-up has been
phenomenal!

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ACT!

- . . . we maintain our database of education users
on ACT! which has been customized for our use. Basically this is a
marketing
tool which we also make use of in the education department. We maintain on
going Excel spread sheets the form of graphs to follow progress and
patterns . . .

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NUD*IST & DECISION EXPLORER & NVivo

- . . . I know of dozens of qualitative researchers who use NUD.IST.  I
have too.  I've also tried one called "Ethnograph".  Most recently I've
used Decision Explorer by Banxia. . . . It seems really rather to depend
on the kind of questions you want to ask and the kind of work you want to
do with your data:  NUD.IST and "Ethnograph" both seem perfectly fine for
textually based searches for "categories" and "themes", although a
criticism I've heard often put is that you have to, to some extent,
predetermine those very categories for searches, i.e. methodologically
"suss".. . . My most recent work was on strategic thinking and/or
decision-making . . . and I used Decision Explorer mainly as a medium for
graphic input and manipulation of complex "soft" data, i.e. strings of
words about thinking and/or decision-making by my contributors, and in the
format of "cognitive maps".  I then used it for eliciting categories and
themes to great effect, rather than develop the "hierarchies of logic"
required for developing "cognitive maps".  I didn't even touch the very
powerful quantitative tools it comes with, though I do plan to sometime
just for fun.
Web: http://www.banxia.com

- NUDIST, that you've already used, and NVivo (the latest version) is a
particularly good software as it links to Decision Explorer, SPSS, Excel
or Access (programmes that deal with quantitative data). So you can
import and export data using NUDIST. You can also get a NUDIST or NVivo
Merger programme for just a few more money and be able to merge results
from 2 or more projects, if that's what you want to do. I understand
your doubts about having to train other people to use NUDIST but they
don't really have to. Each of them can work on a different project using
Excel, for example, to insert the data and analyse it. Then you or
somebody who can use NUDIST can import all the data into NUDIST and
compare them with he more qualitative data. . . .You could also have a
look at the Sage web site they have a lot more software. It's
www.scolari.co.uk.

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ATLAS-TI

- ATLAS-TI works great for coding qualitative data and I found it very
easy to
learn (3 hours).  ATLAS is not a place whre you can store data, however,
it
has to be created in other programs.  Maybe you could have volunteers
create
the data and code it yourself?  I think you would have to do the
quantitative in an outside program, though, and then bring in certain
pieces
of quantitative data to ATLAS.  ATLAS also  helps with organizing
information--I used it once to write a short research paper as an exercise.

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RESOURCE

Weitzman and Miles, 1995, _Computer Programs for Qualitative Data
Analysis_, SAGE.

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Hope this is helpful!
Chris

M. Christine Castle
Consultant, Museum Education & Interpretation
MCL Consulting
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