Dear CAQDAS users,
Greetings from Lancaster, UK.
I would greatly appreciate your feedback on the
comparative advantages (and disadvantages) of NVivo
and ATLAS.ti.
I have conducted 27 in-depth interviews for my PhD
research which links women's/human rights with
cultures and religions in Malaysia (fieldsite of my
research). The interview format was guided by the
hypothesis that cultures and religions do impact on
the effective translation of women's/human rights
within an Asian/Malaysian context (Malaysia is
multi-religious, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic).
Having browsed through relevant CAQDAS literature
(from http://caqdas.soc.surrey.ac.uk), I understand
that the 'theory building' capacity of later softwares
(in addition to fairly complex 'coding and retrieve'
functions) would facilitate the 'testing' of this
hypothesis by modifying or clarifying it further.
My present dilemma of selecting an appropriate
software persists and is compounded by the fact that
I'm a latent technophobe (or am perhaps not too
entirely convinced of the added gains of CAQDAS
compared to a manual approach of managing and making
sense of one's data given my relatively small sample
size). Notwithstanding the hyperlinks/hypertexts
functions of most softwares, the manual approach
appeals in part because I am comfortable scrutinising
my data in its entirety (ie hard copies) and not in
text segments.
There is technical support for ATLAS.ti at Lancaster
University (and to a lesser degree, expertise on
NVivo). Hence the mention of these softwares as
plausible choices (if at all). I am more inclined
towards coding networks that are non-hierarchical.
Essentially is it worthwhile to expend that time and
effort in learning new software functions (and money
on its purchase)? And is a manual approach (however
modified) grossly antiquated in the 21st century!
I look forward with much anticipation to your
feedback.
Thank you.
Sharon A Bong
Department of Religious Studies
Lancaster University
Lancaster LA1 4YG
United Kingdom
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