Transcript QSR NVIVO 7 Sept - Strategies in Qualitative Research

Research. Relate. Realize
QSR NVIVO 7
A Preview in September 2005
Tom Richards, Chief Scientist, QSR International
DISCLAIMER
The build of NVIVO 7 previewed and discussed
here is pre-beta-test and seven months in advance
of the public release version in late February 2006.
Functionality and performance will change by the
public release version, especially as a result of
beta-testing. Hence this version should be
understood only as a guide to what is coming.
Why NVIVO Seven?
• Totally new & redesigned software
– So not just NVIVO three
• Also supersedes the NUD*IST line (N6)
– So it’s seven
• Designed for the future, not a re-vamp of past
versions, styles and approaches
– Early adopter of new technologies
– Ready for new 3-D “Longhorn” OS
– Annual major upgrades from now on
• Free for site licences and maintenance agreements
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Projects
NVIVO 7 Converts Legacy QSR Projects
• Opens N4, N5 and N6
projects, and NVIVO 1
and 2 projects.
• Converts them to NVIVO
7 projects
–Option to make Cases of
all Documents (since
Cases are more central in
NVIVO 7)
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Projects
Project Security and Integrity
• All data in a project, including all Sources, are kept
in a single securely encrypted database file.
• So porting and backing up is trivial.
• No chance of others tampering with documents, no
need for insecure doc file update log files…
• In fact, absolute project database integrity, even
through computer crashes.
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Projects
Multiple Projects
• Run multiple projects
together
• Copy/paste content
between projects
• Project merging will
now be part of the
NVIVO program
– to be released in
Version 7.1 before
midyear).
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Features for handling large projects
• NVIVO 7 is designed to
handle extremely large
projects as well as very
small ones
• Also, users can optimize
performance for large
projects
• Web-browser style
“inverted index” text search
is insensitive to amount or
length of documents.
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Projects
Projects
Save and Undo
Saves are not
automatic, but
reminders are.
Why?
You can undo
the last five
changes, but
not beyond the
last save.
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New Screen Layout gives simple
navigation
Select a folder
(you can create
your own too)
Folder’s items
appear in List
Pane
Contents of
selected item
appear in tabbed
Detail Pane
Navigation Bar
with Group Buttons
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Projects
Projects
Change the Layout
List pane
side by
side with…
Detail pane
is great
for…
Drag-anddrop
coding
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Projects
Or undock any (or all) of the Detail Views!
You can then minimize them down to the taskbar to avoid clutter
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Click a folder to Sources
list its items here
Sources comprise
Documents,
Externals and
Memos
Sources: the data material
Plus folders you
create
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Click an item to
open its
contents below
Sources
Import Word™ .DOC files directly
• Conversion to .RTF
not needed
• Code pictures and
table cells
• Comprehensive wordprocessor
• You can keep
documents in usercreated folders
– In fact you can make
your own sub-folders
just about anywhere.
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External Sources support
multimedia control
• Externals are Sources
for referencing
documents you can’t
include in (or don’t
want to copy into) the
project database
– Web pages, video
files, papers and
books, etc.
Use the External itself to transcribe,
summarize, comment on the
referenced material.
Use the automatically created tape
count stamps on the External to locate
audio-video passages for replay
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Sources
Sources
Sources and Nodes can have Memos
Memo
Icons
• Every Source and Node can have its own
unique Memo
– Use Memos for discussions about their own
Source or Node
• Free or unattached Memos can also be created
– Useful for more research topic discussions
• Memos, like any Source, can be coded, and
given links and annotations.
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Nodes and Coding
Five types of Nodes
• Nodes are NVIVO’s concept categories
– First four represent people, places, topics, concepts, attitudes etc., and
their combinations. That is, they represent entities.
•
•
•
•
•
Free Nodes (unordered)
Tree Nodes (for category/subcategory cataloguing)
Cases (for interviewees, people, places etc.)
Tables (i.e. Matrices)
Relationships (patent pending)
– Not representing entities, but making statements.
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Nodes and Coding
Give nodes nicknames
Nicknames for
nodes speed up
referencing
them when
coding
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Nodes and Coding
Cases are much more central
• Why? Because only Cases have attributes
– Not Sources such as interview docs, not other Nodes
– Attributes are intended for demographic information about people,
places, organizations, etc.
– Cases are where people, places, organizations etc. belong.
• Use Relationships instead, to express information about other
things
– E.g. interview document information
• Make a point of collecting all interview material for an
interviewee at a case node for them.
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– Auto-coding group interviews makes this easy.
Nodes and Coding
Relationships – an entirely new sort of Node
• A relationship joins two Project Items
– They are part of the relationship
• A relationship makes a statement:
– ‘Adrian (works with) Allen’
– ‘Outsider (causes) attitudes\negative’
• Code the relationship with the evidence for the
statement it makes
• Hint: use transitive verbs for relationship names
– ‘causes’, ‘cannot get on with’
– Then the statement made is clear:
– ‘Annette cannot get on with Adrian’
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Nodes and Coding
Coding at Relationships is new and exciting
• You can code for
what you read is
being said, not just
for topics.
– Outsider (causes)
attitudes\positive
• Then open the
relationship Node to
see everything said
about outsiders
bringing about
positive attitudes.
• Then open the
related Nodes to see
what you have on
those topics
– Outsiders
– Attitudes\positive
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•What’s in the related nodes will usually be a lot
more, and a lot less specific – they’re just topics
•And even intersecting them doesn’t home in on this
relationship, this claim that outsiders cause
positiveness. In general it will have more, and less.
Nodes and Coding
Importance of Relationships
• “Ordinary” nodes refer to entities
– People, concepts, places, topics,
emotions, etc.
• Since Relationships make statements,
they can be (and can code evidence for)
– Descriptions, analytical claims,
hypotheses, properties of things, etc.
• Display them in networks in the Modeler
– Complex theories, event & process nets,
structures and organizations
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Nodes and Coding
Let’s do some Coding
• Drag-anddrop Coding
is easy (but
create new
nodes first!)
• Can name
Nodes (&
Sources) in
any
language.
– Can also
find text in
any
language.
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Nodes and Coding
Coding context
• Can show
context in
Node Detail
View
– Can also
spread
coding to its
context
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Nodes and Coding
Viewing Coding
• Can highlight coding at
any node, in Detail View
of a Node or Source
• Can show up to seven
coding stripes and a
coding density stripe:
– Stripes for a node stay in
the one track and with a
unique color
– Stripes are live both to
highlighting their text and
to accessing their node.
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Nodes and Coding
Auto-coding is streamlined
• For questionnaire-type documents, code by paragraph number
• Code by heading text and levels for group interview documents:
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Links
Linking is extended and streamlined
•
Three types of
links
1. Annotations are
similar to Ms.
Word™
– Can list &
inspect them
globally
– Can be textsearched like
Sources
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Links
Sources and Nodes can have a Memo Link
2. A Memo belongs
uniquely to a single
Source or Node
•
•
•
Or make a “freestanding” Memo for
research notes
Memos can be
coded and linked like
other sources
•
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Use it for
commentary on its
original
But not with Memo
links!
Links
See Also Links – extended hyperlinking
3. All in-text links are handled by See-Also Links
•
•
•
•
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Indicated by red wavy underlines
A passage can have multiple See Also links
You can link to just about any Project Item, not just Sources and Nodes
You can also link to any passage in any Source
Links
See Also links can give file & web page access
•
We have an External interview ‘Tiffany’ linked to an
audio file
• We have an interview Document ‘Paula’ referring to
a passage in that audio.
1. Put a See Also Link on Paula’s comment, linked to
the passage in the External
2. Now we can go straight from Paula’s comment to
the audio (and also to the External).
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Sets
Sets are now more flexible
• Sets can now contain a
mixture of Sources and Nodes
(including Case Nodes).
• Use them for temporary and
changing collections e.g. ‘To
review’
• Use them as scopes for Query
searches e.g. ‘Divorced
women’
• Collect them as outputs of
Queries (for further study and
Querying) e.g. ‘Women who
report excellent marriages’
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Classifications
Attributes are properties of Cases
• Attributes were described earlier in
connexion with Case Nodes
• Attributes can be organized as tables of
Case Nodes versus Attributes
– Cells hold the value of the Attribute at the
Case
• Case Tables can be imported and
exported, e.g. to Excel™ or SPSS™
• [Attribute tables are not yet implemented]
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Classifications
Relationship Types
• When creating a Relationship, it has to
be of a chosen Type, which involves:
– Its name (“works with”, “causes” etc.)
– Its direction
• None, like ‘associated’
• One-way, like ‘causes’ or ‘loves’
• Two-way like ‘is married to’
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The Find Tool
The Find Tool locates Project Items
• Look for them by name:
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The Find Tool
Advanced Find
• The Advanced Find option can handle
complex criteria for finding project items:
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The Find Tool
Grouped Find
• Grouped Find is for locating items (the Range)
that relate to any of a number of selected items
(the Scope) [not yet implemented]
• Example: find all Free Nodes (the Range)
coding Interview Documents (the Scope)
• Result will list each Document and the Free
Nodes that code it.
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The Query System – the
powerhouse of NVIVO 7
• Queries are ways of locating specific content
• Queries can be saved for future use
– Re-run them later when data have changed
– Edit them to make a similar but different search
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Query
Query
Text Search is similar to Web search engines
Check here
to save the
query
Looking for
three text
items
Can text-search
Annotations too
Use these to set
the scope of the
search
E.g. stemmed search
for ‘give’ will find
‘giving’, (English only)
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Query
Many options for Query results
What to do with the
results? If you just
preview, you can go
on to save as a
node, etc.
Last 3 items save the
scope items that had
finds, as a set or as
sibling nodes.
Including some
context with finds
(spreading) can be a
good idea, especially
for text search
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The hidden power of Text Search
• Read Help on Text Search Queries to
learn about the hidden power of Text
Search:
– Items with finds are listed with a
relevance weighting
– Boolean search: e.g. for items containing
“social interaction” but not “community”.
– Use wildcards * and ? (like in Word™)
– Proximity (how close do you want “fear”
and “threat” to be in a search item?)
– What weighting do you want to give
different words?
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Query
Coding Query can be “Simple” or “Advanced”
• “Simple”
looks for
coding of one
node in the
search
scope.
• “Advanced”
allows the
statement of
many criteria
in a natural
English way.
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Query
Table Queries tabulate many queries at once
• Choose the
rows for the
table…
• Then the
columns…
• Then the
operator to
make the
cells…
• Then Run to
make the table
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Query
The result is a Table
• Show counts of
Sources,
words, etc.
• Inspect each
cell’s content
like a Node
• Export
numerical table
as Excel or tabseparated text
file
• Store as Table
Node for future
use.
• Give it a Memo,
link it to other
items.
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Query
Compound Queries
• These will enable mixing of other types
of query
• [Not yet implemented]
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Report Tool
Reports provide project profiles
• Use them to
get
information
on any area
of a project
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Report Tool
Print Reports, save as .DOC, .PDF etc.
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Report Tool
Coding Comparison Reports
• Compare coding
by two coders in
two identical
documents
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Models
Models are hardly implemented yet
• Here’s a model of some relationships + their coded evidence
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And here’s the final wrap-up!
• No Using NVIVO book this time from Lyn Richards 
– Instead it’s a whole book in the Help files, Your Research
in NVIVO 7     
– It’s a “conceptual help” to read by itself as a book
– But also it’s carefully linked into the top-notch “procedural
help”
• why as well as how for each topic, e.g. coding at
relationships
• Handling Qualitative Data by Lyn Richards (London,
Sage, 2005) will have new tutorials for NVIVO 7 on their
website www.sagepub.co.uk/richards
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