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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