Mica Allan wrote:
>
> Can anyone give advice as to the most suitable software package to
> use to analyse the following data - I have a fellow researcher who is
> about to embark on the following data collection.....
>
> 1,500 - 2,000 questionnaires will generate mainly quantitative
> data, (where SPSS enters the scene) however, there are also quite
> a few open-ended questions - approx. 25 in the questionnaire
> which could elicit answers of anything from a few words to a few
> paragraphs - potentially.
>
> Given that NVivo is not suitable for such large chunks of data, does
> anyone have any ideas on what would be the most suitable
> analysis package to use? My feeling is that as the qualitative data
> is going to be gathered on paper, rather than face to face, this may
> significantly reduce the length of data generated and, this said,
> then NVivo may be suitable to use, given that you can code at a
> very detailed level.
>
> Any ideas/opinions, most welcome.
If you want to code in a very detailed level, maybe QDA packages are
okay for you. Often you have a very homogeneous vocabulary in responses
to open ended questions, and if you can categorise your concepts with
single words or phrases, then programs that use the dictionary approach
maybe appropriate. I wrote a program named TextQuest
(http://www.textquest.de) that can do that, you can download a test
version from my site.
Harald Klein
------------------------
Dr. Harald Klein
Social Science Consulting
Brückengasse 12
07407 Rudolstadt
Germany
Tel/Fax: +49 3672 488494
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