Behind the Wizard’s Curtain:Using NVivo to Make Qualitative Analysis

More Transparent

Kari Greene, MPH

March 9, 2015

Program Design & Evaluation Services

Portland, Oregon

Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) can seem

a bit like…

So let’s peel back that curtain & take a peek!

Overview

• Team vs. Solo QDA approach

• What sources inform inquiry

• Using memos to document process

• Building an explicit codebook

• Coding source data

• Use of queries

• Identifying themes

My History…

Focus on Analytic Procedures

Focus on Text-Based Analysis

A Whole Lotta Data…

• Conduct 25 interviews

– Roughly 20-minutes long

• Produces approximately…

– How many words?

– How many single-spaced pages?

65,000 words

150 pages

“Analysis brings moments of terror that there’s nothing there

and times of exhilaration from the clarity of discovering

ultimate truth. In between are long periods of hard work,

deep thinking, and weight-lifting volumes of material.”

Michael Quinn Patton

#omgMQP

Solo or Team Approach to Analysis

Key Terms & Concepts

• Sources

• Memos

• Codes (nodes)

• Codebook (coding tree, coding schema)

• Themes

Sources

Data sources

• Field notes

• Interviews

• Survey data

• Reports

• Material

informing

inquiry

• Internal &

external data

• Primary or

secondary

data

Memos

Memos

• Analytic

• Procedural

• Considered a ‘source’

• Ideas & thoughts generated

• Procedures throughout project

• Process made explicit

Nodes

Nodes

• Contains coding

• Collection of

references to

concepts &

categories

• Able to code

participants

& places

• Relationships

• Matrices

Able to assign nodes to

different types of

sources

• Participants

• Places

Relationships between

concepts or codes

• Directionality

• Visualize thought

process

Node Matrices cross-

tabulates nodes

• Connections

between concepts

• Able to visualize

Building a Codebook

• Detailed description of each code– Allows consistent use of codes throughout process

• Criteria of good codes– Mutually exclusive codes

– Inclusion & exclusion criteria

– If code is abstract, provide examples of the boundaries

• Codebooks developed & refined throughout process– Might have an initial broad codebook based on research questions

– Iterative process of coding source data & developing codebook

– Document significant changes in procedural & analytic memos

Example codebook report

• Explore / Report

• Import an NVivo

template

Coding Steps• Read through all source data

– Create memos of what you notice AND your procedures

• Start open coding

– If part of a team, have everyone start with same section of source data & compare open coding

– Document necessary changes to codebook

• Look for relationships between descriptive codes

• Time-intensive…multiple layers of coding the same data

– Importance of reflexivity & documentation

• May need additional data as ideas emerge

“Qualitative data analysis is generally a non-linear process

and often can be recursive. As you continue on collecting

information, you may notice new things and need to think

about them. As a result, you sometimes have to go back to

old data and analyze them again.”

Shahedul Huq Khandkar

Iterative Process

Queries =

“syntax”

Results of queries

• “Coding reports”

• Dynamic process

Identifying Themes

• Use analytic memos to add meaning to the data

• Keep research questions close at hand

– Easy to get lost in the data trenches

– Make them a source document (memo)

• Analytic themes must be supported by the data!!

– Cannot just reflect the mental model of the analyst

• Use of relationships & models to visualize findings

– Helpful when interrogating the data & in report-writing

“Don’t be afraid to be confused. Try to remain

permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open,

forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more,

until the day you die, world without end, amen.”

George Saunders

Constantly Question…

So what I’m saying is…

• NVivo helps make the analytic process explicit

• Facilitates multiple ways to hit key criteria for

trustworthy qualitative inquiries (Lincoln & Guba, 1985)

1. Credibility

2. Transferability

3. Dependability

4. Confirmability

Thank you!

Kari Greene, MPH

971-673-0599

kari.greene@state.or.us