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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 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%