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DPLS 776su09 Computer Analysis of Qualitative Data

DPLS 776 Computer Analysis of Qualitative Data
Summer 2009       1 credit

Professor: Chris Francovich, Ed.D.

Office Phone: 509-313-3592

E-mail: francovich@gonzaga.edu

Office hours: Please call for an appointment: 509-313-3592

Class Logistics:

Class sessions: Fri June 12: 6-10; Sat June 13: 8-4 Meeting room TBA

It is expected that everyone in the class will have a laptop computer with N8 loaded, working, and ready to go. If you don't have a laptop and N8 please contact me. 

This course provides students with structured opportunities to analyze, interpret, and report qualitative research using data from a standardized set of data called the Hospital Project. These data will consist of limited transcripts of semi-structured focus groups and narrative taken from three different instruments asking three identical open ended questions related to trust of the same population. Each instrument asks the same questions from three different perspectives - patient/family perspectives, team perspectives, and organizational perspectives. The data will be coded and ready for importation into N8. (The reason that the data is pre-coded is so that we can immediately begin using the query, text search, and auto coding capabilities. Participants will have an opportunity to code and recode data throughout the experience.)

This course will be devoted to learning the basics of N8 through the analysis and interpretation of this data set. Each participant will load the files from either a thumb drive or off of Blackboard on their own laptop and then progress through structured exercises taken from the provided tutorial. Conversation and collaboration around strategies, techniques, themes, and ideas will occur throughout the course. It is expected that each participant will deviate from the tutorial in their own time and in their own way. As a group we will pull things together during the last hour or so on Saturday to talk about our experience. 

Requirements:

Please see the N8 Website for related information and materials.

QSR Forum. The Forum brings together users of QSR's software products with commentators, developers, distributors and teachers from around the world. You don't have to be a user of the software to take part, nor is discussion confined to QSR software.

http://forums.qsrinternational.com/

Course Aims:

The primary goal of the course is to help students and candidates become familiar with N8 as a viable and useful tool for research as well as for project development and management. Secondary goals are to practice and refine analytical skills in a computer supported environment. It is also the intent of the course to stimulate honest reflective thought on the challenges and opportunities of qualitative analysis as a viable scientific method using computer assisted qualitative data analysis software or CAQDAS. 

Class Sessions:

Session 1:

Friday evening 6-10 pm Overview of course, Getting the data ready. Begin tutorial. Methods used by scholarly researchers as well as consultants and program evaluators will be discussed. The Hospital Project reflects a hybrid effort by a junior researcher at a university and a team of for-profit consultants (of which I was a member).

Session 2:

Saturday 8 am - 5 pm. Continue the tutorial and begin modeling and reporting on data. Time will also be spent in general dialogue about the analysis of qualitative data. Stories, experiences, and projects will be discussed and shared.

We will be covering the following during our two day course:

  • -Setting up Projects: Task - Create Projects
    • --Navigation Issues: Task - Review Navigation Features
    • --What kind of Study? Case? Ethnographic? Phenomenological? Survey Analysis? Program Evaluation? Mixed Methods? Task - Discuss
    • --Also recognize that depending on your style, skills, and capacity your project will likely begin or soon result in some confusion and ambiguity. Dealing with this ambiguity is not unlike learning or dealing with change or the unknown.
      • ---experiment (but have multiple copies of your data and analysis documents
      • ---Use the help files and tutorials often!
      • ---Accept the fact that you will make mistakes
  • -Creating and Importing Sources:  Tasks - Import Coded Document & Externals
    • --Thinking about your data? Auto coding? Attributes? It is important to make this as simple as possible from the beginning. Will you need or use video or audio as part of your data? Will you use photographs or graphics? (see Externals). If you are transcribing data you need to think about your project designs prior to transcription. You might want to use markers, codes, or formatting in the transcription process to facilitate the process once you import the data.
    • --One of the most important things to remember is that the process of naming, classifying and sorting data is theory laden and coming out of assumptions and prior thinking and beliefs. This become particularly contentious when using technology to help in the process. It is easier to fall into rigidity using technology. The capacity to autocode, for example, makes it more likely or easier to choose to use autocoding. Of course there are also pragmatic issues. The Hospital Project, for example, is part of a pragmatic approach on the part of both the consultants and the clinic.
  • -Managing Data
    • --The cases, attributes, and sets of N7/N8 are offered as beginning points in the management of your data. They are not the only options however. Given the type of project you may or may not use some or all of these options. You may also elect to you a combination of these options and others not mentioned here. For example, you might use a color coding scheme with source documents and  the attributes function of N7/N8. There are many different possibilities once you get going. I find that I often use a combination of paper copies, N7/N8 structures, and my own memory to manage the data. The Hospital Project uses the Node system and frequency matrices as the primary management strategy.
  • -Editing & Linking Data
    • --Memos, annotations, framing
  • -Nodes & Coding  (Discuss)
    • --Fee Nodes: Task - Code some free nodes
    • --Tree Nodes: Task - Create tree nodes
    • --Auto Coding: Task - Code to tree nodes
  • -Relationships (Show examples)
    • --This function is an example of how analysis begins to suggest itself in the coding or indexing process. You begin to see relationships between nodes, cases, or documents that you want to hold on to and think about.
    • --The important thing to note is that setting up relationships happens through the classifications folder and using them is done via the Nodes folder.
  • -Models (Show Example)
    • --I have not used this function very much.
  • -Questions & Queries (auto coding, text searches or queries
    • --This goes to the heart of the analysis and interpretation process. We will spend considerable time looking at this feature.
    • --Text Query
    • --Coding Query
    • --Compound Query (see this and the use of Sets - in the project look at Communication near Family and Staff and Contractual Trust.
  • -Patterns and Matrices
    • --See Matrix Coding examples and the essence of this project.
  • -Reporting Data and Showing Models

    • --Review the documents and reports.

Evaluation:

This course is offered on a pass/fail basis. It is expected that all participants will show up for the complete experience and participate as appropriate.

Cost and other data on N7/N8

can be found on their website at:

http://www.qsrinternational.com/products_nvivo.aspx 

Web Resources:

-Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software

http://www.socresonline.org.uk/1/4/CAQDAS.html

-How research and teaching will change with NVivo 7

http://www.qual-strategies.org/previous/2005/papers/RichardsL/files/RichardsL.pps

-Slide show overview of qualitative data analysis software and issues regarding its use by Drisko (2004).

http://sophia.smith.edu/~jdrisko/qdaslide.htm

-Qualitative Data Analysis: Technologies and Representations by Amanda Coffey, Beverly Holbrook and Paul Atkinson (1996)

 http://www.socresonline.org.uk/1/1/4.html

-Optional. From Technological Somnambulism to Epistemological Awareness: reflections on the impact of computer-aided qualitative data analysis. Paul Trowler (updated 27.6.03)

http://www.lancs.ac.uk/staff/trowler/hyperres.htm

-Optional. Text analysis resources - compiled by Harold Klein. Information on computer based text analysis, software, archives, articles, and newsgroups

http://www.textanalysis.info/

Hospital Project Goals:

This exploratory pilot study investigated levels of trust between  pediatric critical care nurses and physicians in relation to their organization and workgroup. The study also looked at trust in relation to  patients and families. Through a series of focus groups, online surveys, and observations we investigated the applicability of the Reina Trust and Betrayal ModelTM to the experiences of pediatric critical care nurses and explored the relationship between pediatric critical care nurses experiences of trust and betrayal and caregiver suffering.

The specific aims of the project were:

  • -To explore pediatric critical care nurses and physicians the level of trust between team members, in relation to their organization, and with patients and families.
  • -To investigate the applicability of the Reina Trust and Betrayal Model to the experiences of pediatric critical care nurses and physicians.
  • -To explore the relationship between pediatric critical care nurses experience of trust and betrayal and caregiver suffering.

 Posted 11 March by PS


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