Thanks, Thomas.
Despite my earlier post, I've never felt particularly proprietorial
about the term CAQDAS. (Neither I would guess does Nigel.) In everyday
speech with colleagues I use the various terms you've mentioned more or
less interchangeably. I tend to use the acronym CAQDAS, with an
explanation, when I'm writing about software, though even then for
reasons of stylistic variability I might also use the other terms,
provided its clear what they refer back to. It doesn't seem to me that
the terminology maps in any neat way onto particular categories of
user, so I find the whole concern you express rather opaque.
When I teach on the topic I make it very clear that there is a
substantial and long-standing tradition concerned with the quantitative
analysis of text, and I stress the advantages as well as the
disadvantages of that approach. However, I do not regard purely
enumerative approaches as falling under the ambit of CAQDAS. For me,
however, fs/QCA is a CAQDAS package. Why? We have come to regard
qualitative data as synonymous with textual data. This is the
consequence of the unexamined impact of a technological innovation, the
tape-recorder. (I have an article appearing soon in Sociology that
looks at the impact of recording technologies.) But until people were
able to produce verbatim transcriptions of (interview) speech, they
tended to orient themselves to whole cases, often via techniques of
case reduction. Moreover, one only has to think of Simmel or Goffman to
realise that qualitative work has a strong strand of formalism running
through it. I, therefore, see Ragin's approach as located solidly
within the qualitative tradition, rather than being inimical to it.


On 13 Sep 2004, at 7:25 pm, Thomas Koenig wrote:

Raymond,

I obviously did not express myself clearly enough, my apologies. I used
the
term so-called "qualitative data analysis software" not in a sarcastic
manner, but, because my hunch is, that it is the most commonly used term
for CAQDAS -- besides CAQDAS itself ("qualitative software" also comes
to
mind). Thus, I was using the term "so-called" in the sense of "commonly
named, popularly so termed." My hunch is that particularly those, who
are
still unfamiliar with the acronym CAQDAS seem to use the term
"qualitative
data analysis software" without the preceeding "computer-assisted." My
explorations through googlefight, while far from being comprehensive,
seem
to initially support that thesis: The phrase "qualititative data
analysis
software" not being preceeded by "computer-assisted" is almost five
times
more frequent than "computer-assisted qualitative data analysis
software."
(The frequencies ratio increase to almost twenty times, when you exclude
pages mentioning the acronym CAQDAS from the search).

I also used the term "so-called," precisely because I wanted to distance
myself from the rather ambigious term "qualitative data analysis
software."
Instead, I would favor simply sticking with the acronym, which in my
view
is far more precise than any lengthy circumscription: People who know
the
term "CAQDAS" know which programs commonly qualify as CAQDAS. In the
HTML-Version (http://lboro.ac.uk/research/mmethods/seminars.html),
where a
little Window explaining the literal meaning of the acronym pops-up,
when
the mouse pointer is moved over the acronym, which makes it hopefully
less
ambigious; I also inserted now a "more aptly termed" in front of CAQDAS
and
replaced "so-called" by "what is frequently called."

I also did not intend the label to be restricted to "code and retrieve"
software, as my rather awkward, lengthy description was intended to
show.

Having said that, I have a question: I would not count fs/QCA
(http://www.u.arizona.edu/~cragin/fsqca.htm) towards CAQDAS, because,
while
I do think that CAQDAS are not restricted to "code and retrieve,"
programs
that do not have some sort of code and retrieval functions are not
commonly
associated with CAQDAS.

Hope, that clears it up.

Thomas

At 16:55 13/09/2004, you wrote:
> As the person who originally coined the term CAQDAS (one sunny
> afternoon in Nigel Fielding's office), I deliberately included the
> words 'computer-assisted' to emphasise that software needs always to be
> used within a framework of methodological awareness and reflection. (A
> point that has been re-emphasised over and over again by developers and
> informed commentators ever since.) Of course, I have no control over
> how other people use the term, but I've never restricted it to
> code-and-retrieve software.
> I took Suzanne to be responding not to the acronym itself but to the
> adjective 'so-called'. 'So-called' has two contradictory meanings in
> English. One is to indicate that a phrase used is a term of art. The
> other and more common usage is to refer to something in a sarcastic
> manner. If Thomas deliberately used the term with the latter intention,
> then those who have striven over the years for a sophisticated
> understanding of the possibilities and limitations of software packages
> used to facilitate qualitative data analysis have some grounds for
> feeling offended.
>
>
> On 13 Sep 2004, at 4:13 pm, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>
> Susanne,
> At 09:26 13/09/2004, you wrote:
>> [Thomas' (my) announcement:]
>> > "so-called qualitative computer software (CAQDAS)" in research;
>>
>> I just wanted to point out that the acronym CAQDAS does not stand for
>> "so-called qualitative computer software". Phrases like that or even
>> worth
>> qualitative data analysis software contribute further to the
>> misunderstandings relatedd to CAQDAS.
>
>
> Ooops, sorry that was indeed a very clumsy term, after all, all
> software is
> implicitly designed for computers. Thank you for pointing me to this.
>
> However, I changed it in the HTML version now to the term you loathe so
> much, namely into, "so-called qualitative data analysis software", and
> here
> is why:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/4bzxj
>
> (original URL:
> http://googlefight.com/cgi-bin/compare.pl?q1=computer-assisted-
> qualitative-data-analysis-software&q2=qualitative-data-analysis-
> software+-computer-assisted-qualitative-data-analysis-
> software&B1=Make+a+fight%21&compare=1&langue=us)
>
> Atlas.ti, NVivo and Co. are in fact called "qualitative data analysis
> software," even if this might be a misleading term when taken
> literally. It
> is, however, misleading, not because of its missing
> "computer-assisted," as
> you seem to imply. I think "computer-assisted" is implicit in the term
> "qualitative data analysis software" (who would write
> "computer-assisted
> statistical software packages"?). Instead, it is IMO misleading,
> because
> "qualitative data," i.e. unstructured data, can be analyzed with the
> help
> of all sorts of programs, including so-called quantitative packages
> like
> Textpack or Diction. However, (computer-assisted) qualitative data
> analysis
> software, better known as CAQDAS, sometimes also QDAS, has become a
> term
> that denotes only "code-and-retrieve software for various types of
> data,
> which increasingly allows for the visualization of relationships
> between
> data bits, codes, and/or theoretical concepts" (CRSFVTDIAVRDBCTC, aka
> 3rd
> generation CAQDAS). Obviously, the acronym "CAQDAS" is far easier to
> pronounce and more and more people know, which software is subsumed
> under
> the heading "CAQDAS." Those, who are not familiar with the term
> "CAQDAS"
> will most likely know the term "qualitative data analysis software", as
> googlefight shows. Therefore I will stick with it, even though I prefer
> to
> use the acronym.