AnaLogiQual 2008
Logiciels pour l'analyse qualitative : innovations techniques et sociales
Integrating litterature in qualitative research using Nvivo 8
Inductive approaches to qualitative data analysis have always been, and continue to be, a strong tradition in qualitative research. This however does not mean that pre-existing theory does not play any role. With theory we mean the ideas of the researcher(s) which are formed by their personal, educational and professional backgrounds and the body of existing literature that can shed a light on the research topic. In this paper I would like to focus on the role of this body of literature, present arguments to integrate literature in your qualitative research project and discuss some of the ways in which this can be done using NVivo 8, the latest version of NVivo released in March 2008.
Literature can play multiple roles in the course of a qualitative research project. Doing a literature review will often be necessary (or at least helpful) to identify the gaps in existing knowledge, to stimulate the researchers awareness of their own ideas and preconceptions, to formulate the original research questions, to inspire data-analysis and further data collection, to reformulate original research questions, to become more sensitive to new topics and questions that can emerge from the data, to evaluate and to validate the own findings.
Software for qualitative analysis is mainly being used for the ‘coding and retrieval’ of data collected by the researcher(s). The powerful tools that these software programs, in this case NVivo 8, offer for the integration of literature and the management of the research project are often underused. By using tools as sets, links or models insights from literature can be integrated and used to enhance the researchers insights in the topic. Moreover, incorporating literature in your NVivoproject allows you to code and analyse your literature in a ‘constant comparison’ with the analysis of the data you are gathering.
I will discuss some of the possibilities NVivo 8 offers to incorporate literature including importing pdf-files using the built-in pdf-converter, using externals to summarize and represent literature or combining bibliographic software like Reference Manager with NVivo 8. In the discussion I would like to share my thoughts and comments on the advantages and disadvantages of these different ways of dealing with literature using NVivo 8 with other participants.
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Éditeur : Ishs-Ulg,
2008
Avec le soutien du Fonds National de la Recherche (Luxembourg) et de l'Association pour la Recherche Qualitative (Quebec) |
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