Introduction to Qualitative Research and it's Packages

Data:
Data can be defined as a representation of facts, concepts, or instructions in a formalized
manner, which should be suitable for communication, interpretation, or processing by human or
electronic machine.
Data is represented with the help of characters such as alphabets (A-Z, a-z), digits (0-9) or
special characters (+,-,/,*,<,>,= etc.)

Information:
Information is organized or classified data, which has some meaningful values for the receiver.
Information is the processed data on which decisions and actions are based.

For the decision to be meaningful, the processed data must qualify for the following
characteristics:

● Timely − Information should be available when required.

● Accuracy − Information should be accurate.
● Completeness − Information should be complete.

Qualitative Data:
Qualitative data are measures of 'types' and may be represented by a name, symbol, or a
number code. Qualitative data are data about categorical variables (e.g. what type)

Qualitative Research:
Qualitative research is research using methods such as participant observation or case studies
which result in a narrative, descriptive account of a setting or practice. Sociologists using these
methods typically reject positivism and adopt a form of interpretive sociology.

Qualitative Data Analysis Software:

Qualitative Data Analysis Software is a system that helps with a wide range of processes that
help in content analysis, transcription analysis, discourse analysis, coding, text interpretation,
recursive abstraction, grounded theory methodology and to interpret information so as to make
informed decisions. The types of qualitative data include, telephone interviews, internet
interviews, focus groups, email interviews, face to face interviews, nominal groups, Delphi
groups, observation notes, and document collation among others.
Qualitative data analysis software offers content searching tools, coding tools, query, writing and
annotation tools, linking ability and mapping or networking tools.
Features of Qualitative Data Analysis Software:

● Annotations: Annotations are a great feature that enables inserting of texts and images
for greater flexibility and ease of use. This also helps to connect various pieces of data to
offer evidence by creating links to other coded segments, documents, case studies, or
websites.
● Data Visualization: The software also enables visualization of data in form of heat maps,
clustering, multidimensional scaling, which allow one to quickly identify trends and
patterns.

● Media Analytics: The software can help gather and analyze data from various media
outlets to make business decisions.

● Mixed methods research: The software helps in conducting research by gathering,

analyzing and inter grading quantitative research for example surveys, experiments and
qualitative research such as focus groups and interviews.

● Multi-language: The software supports several languages

● Qualitative Comparative analysis: The software helps describe, compare and test a
hypothesis on qualitative data

● Quantitative content analysis: The software utilizes several tools and methods to study
media content.

● Sentiment Analysis: The software helps in the process of identifying and classifying
opinions computationally and expressed in form of text to determine the attitude of the
writer towards a particular subject.

● Statistical Analysis: The software involves business intelligence that helps collect and
scrutinize every data sample in collection items from which the samples are gotten from.

● Text Analytics: The software helps in text data mining or obtaining high-quality
information from text
● User research Analysis: The software helps in studying user behavior, needs, and
motivations through task analysis and observation techniques.

● Provides Content searching tools

● Provides Coding tools

● Provides Linking ability

● Provides tools for Mapping or networking and Tools for Query, Writing and annotation
Different types of Data Analysis Packages

Qualitative Data Analysis Software provides tools to assist with qualitative research such as
transcription analysis, coding and text interpretation, recursive abstraction, content analysis,
discourse analysis, and grounded theory methodology.

1. MAXQDA

MAXQDA is a qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method data analysis tool. It lets you input
data from a range of sources such as surveys, interviews, and focus groups to name a few. You
can then tag and categorize this data for analysis.

Best for: In their words, MAXQDA was “created by researchers, for researchers.” This is across
the education, non-profit and commercial sectors.

Strengths: It’s easy to use and can support a number of different languages. It also uses AI to
help users with audio transcription.

This software was founded in 1989, so they have been around for a while and you can trust that
their offerings are reliable.

MAXQDA Word frequencies dashboard.

Weaknesses: Using it collaboratively in a team is not easy as individual users have to save their
work and then merge the versions. This can be cumbersome. It’s also not the most attractive to
look at compared with other software.

Pricing: They have three different pricing plans that come with both an annual and perpetual
price. They also offer a free trial. You can find more information here.
2. NVivo

Like MAXQDA, NVivo is a software tool that allows its users to organize and store their
qualitative data ready for analysis. You can also import word docs, PDFs, audio, images, and
video.

Best for: Researchers or academics looking for software with autocoding.

Strengths: The interface is easy to use and is quite like Microsoft - this makes it instantly familiar
and intuitive for many users. It’s much more powerful than some other offerings and offers
automated transcription and autocoding.

NVivo's coding query preview screen.

Weakness: NVivo struggles with languages that have characters, this isn’t a problem, for
instance, for MAXQDA.

While it is powerful compared to some of its competitors like Taguette, it doesn’t have the power
to work with large data sets. After you’ve coded your data, you will still have to analyze your
data manually, which could take a long time.

Pricing: The price will vary according to a few factors, for example, whether you are a student or
whether you are purchasing for an organization.
3. ATLAS.ti

ATLAS.ti is a powerful QDA software tool, it supports large bodies of textual, graphical, audio
and video data. Unlike other software in this category such as Quirkos, it has incorporated AI
technology as it has evolved.

Best for: This is best for research organizations, corporations, and academic institutions due to
the extra AI features and the added cost.

Strengths: Its interface is cleaner and sleeker than both Nvivo and MAXQDA, and collaboration
is easier than in MAXQDA. It is also more powerful, boating both sentiment analysis and
autocoding.

Atlas.ti word cloud visualization example.

Weakness: It can get expensive for individual users (such as students). Some users have also
complained that the coding features are not that intuitive.

Pricing: They offer a free trial and an extensive amount of licensing options based on sector and
individual needs.
4. QDA Miner

QDA Miner is a qualitative and mixed-method software that helps you to organize, code and
analyze your data. They offer both a paid and free version called QDA Miner Lite.

Best for: Those looking for advanced visualizations and who are working alone.

Strengths: The latest version, QDA Miner 6, which was released in 2020, can link up with
Tableau, a top data visualization tool, to give you an array of visualization options.

Weakness: QDA Miner doesn’t allow for collaboration which would be a big drawback if you are
working on data with a team. Within the free version, the import and export functions are limited,
as are the analysis functions. However, it might be enough to get you started or if you’re looking
to test the waters.

Pricing: They offer a number of packages according to sector and needs.

There are several other Data Analysis Software that are to be seen such as Nudist and
Anthropac.