You could use NVivo if you were to create 25 documents with each document
reflecting each open question. Then you can code each document, etc. It
would allow for an interesting analysis and model exploration without
overanalyzing.
Gonzalo Bacigalupe, EdD
Assistant Professor & Director
Marriage and Family Therapy Program <http://omega.cc.umb.edu/~family>
Graduate College of Education
University of Massachusetts Boston
Boston MA 02125-3393
-----Original Message-----
From: Sarah Delaney [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 10:12 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Suitable QSP's
Hmm - I'd actually go for NUDIST/Atlas/HyperResearch as well, they are
designed to handle large bodies of data, and I reckon that with that number
of questionnaires you could very quickly build up a laaaaarge quantity, and
with the combination of SPSS - if you get too into fine coding for
qualitative questions, it's creating a lot of work! A LOT A LOT!
Also, on a more theoretical level, over-detailed coding of written
open-ended questions is risky because:
You may be reading far too much in to what someone has written without you
being 'there'
Conversation is very different - there is interaction as well as
interpretation. Many people use an abbreviated form of English (or whatever
language) when filling out open-ended questions - go too deep and you could
lose the meaning or read far too much into it.
Over-coding generally is a problem, as we have angsted about last year (I
made 'angsted' up by the way)
Just my thoughts,
Sarah D
> ----------
> From: Mica Allan
> Reply To: qual-software
> Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 3:00 pm
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Suitable QSP's
>
> 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.
>
> With thanks,
>
> - Mica
>
>
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