As a new member of this list, I've missed some of the "movie". I'm not
familiar with Ethnograph - how does it compare with NU*Dist? Is there a
demo URL?
John Konrad
Senior Lecturer in Professional Development
School of Professional Education & Development
Leeds Metropolitan University
Beckett Park Campus
LEEDS
UK-LS6 3QS
Phone: 0113 283 7490
Fax: 0113 283 3181
URL: http://www.lmu.ac.uk/ces/ped/
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [log in to unmask] [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 12 May 1999 02:44
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: NVivo and Grounded Theory - what's in a name?
>
> In a message dated 99-05-11 13:56:07 EDT, Birrell Walsh wrote:
> <<
> ...In particular, good software makes it easier to test a theory that
> comes
> to mind in midstream. If it is associated with a word or a set of
> words, I can search for every occurrence of that word in the transcripts
> with a few keystrokes. I remember in particular when I realized that
> the idea of "opening doors" was a central metaphor for one of the people
> I was interviewing. I made up a code for 'opening doors,' and
> auto-coded on "open*" and "door*". Then I went through all the
> quotations this auto-coding had found, tossing out the mis-matches and
> keeping the ones that were an example of the metaphor. In ten minutes I
> had confirmed the importance of the metaphor in this woman's discourse.
> Try doing that by hand!
> >>
>
> I'm in the process of learning Ethnograph 5.0 to analyze nearly 50
> interview
> transcripts, extensive field notes, and other materials on perceptions of
> "serious emotional disorders" in children and adolescents in one community
> in
> Hawaii, and I do see how the software will potentially contribute to
> identifying patterns etc. However, it remains to be seen whether all the
> coding effort will pay off -- I too have already done a number of
> productive
> searches for particular words/phrases, BUT that can be done using just
> about
> any word processor. In fact, I already went through all my transcripts
> and
> entered code words which I can search for using WordPerfect. I also
> "stacked" the transcripts into three large files (Caregivers, Service
> Providers, Community Leaders), thus approximating the "identifier"
> function
> in qualitative analysis software, and cut-and-pasted my field notes into
> about 15 different topic areas. Just a few years ago WordPerfect and Word
>
> couldn't handle such huge files without going slow as molasses or
> constantly
> freezing -- hence a stimulus, I presume, for the development of
> qualitative
> analysis software. What I'm getting at is that much of the qualitative
> analysis I've seen described on this list could be done just as easily
> using
> a modern word processor on a Pentium computer. I'm turning to Ethnograph
> because so far a worthy "theory" has failed to emerge from my data. In
> terms
> of the recent discussion of qualitative analysis software and grounded
> theory, I see the software as a tool for generating possible connections
> and
> patterns, which will then have to be re-assessed against what I and my
> informants know about the various complexities of the topic.
>
> David Leake
> Center on Disability Studies/UAP
> University of Hawaii at Manoa
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