Daniel Turner - Quirkos Qualitative Research Blog (Page 5)

Considering and planning for qualitative focus groups

This is the first in a two-part series on focus groups. This week, we are looking at some of the why you might consider using them in a research project, and questions to make sure they are well integrated into your research strategy. Next week we will look at some practical tips

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Circles and feedback loops in qualitative research

The best qualitative research forms an iterative loop, examining, and then re-examining. There are multiple reads of data, multiple layers of coding, and hopefully, constantly improving theory and insight into the underlying lived world

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Triangulation in qualitative research

Qualitative methods are sometimes criticised as being subjective, based on single, unreliable sources of data. But with the exception of some case study research, most qualitative research will be designed to integrate insights from a variety of data sources

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100 blog articles on qualitative research!

Since our regular series of articles started nearly three years ago, we have clocked up 100 blog posts on a wide variety of topics in qualitative research and analysis! These are mainly short overviews

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Thinking About Me: Reflexivity in science and qualitative research

Reflexivity is a process (and it should be a continuing process) of reflecting on how the researcher could be influencing a research project. In a traditional positivist research paradigm, the researcher attempts to be a neutral influence on research

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The importance of keeping open-ended qualitative responses in surveys

I once had a very interesting conversation at a MRS event with a market researcher from a major media company. He told me that they were increasingly ‘costing-out’ the qualitative open-ended questions from customer surveys because they were too expensive and time consuming to analyse

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Analytical memos and notes in qualitative data analysis and coding

There is a lot more to qualitative coding than just deciding which sections of text belong in which theme. It is a continuing, iterative and often subjective process, which can take weeks or even months. During this time, it’s almost essential to be recording your thoughts

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Reflections on qualitative software from KWALON 2016

Last week saw a wonderful conference held by the the Dutch network for qualitative research KWALON, based at the Erasmus University, Rotterdam. The theme was no less than the future of Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) software. Chair Jeanine Evers opened the session by outlining 8 important themes

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Include qualitative analysis software in your qualitative courses this year

A new term is just beginning, so many lecturers, professors and TAs are looking at their teaching schedule for the next year. Some will be creating new courses, or revising existing modules, wondering what to include and what’s new. So why not include qualitative analysis software?

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Qualitative coding with the head and the heart

In the analysis of qualitative data, it can be easy to fall in the habit of creating either very descriptive, or very general theoretical codes. It’s often a good idea to take a step back, and examine your coding framework, challenging yourself to look at the data in a fresh way

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10 tips for sharing and communicating qualitative research

Writing up and publishing research based on qualitative or mixed methods data is one thing, but most researchers will want to go beyond this, and engage with the wider public and decision makers. This requires a different style of publication, and a different style of writing

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Making qualitative analysis software accessible

Studies and surveys seem to show that the amount of qualitative research is growing, and that more and more people are using software to help with their qualitative analysis (Woods et al. 2015). However, these studies also highlight that users report problems with learning qualitative software

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Reaching saturation point in qualitative research

A common question from newcomers to qualitative research is, what’s the right sample size? How many people do I need to have in my project to get a good answer for my research questions? For research based on quantitative data, there is usually a definitive answer

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Tips for managing mixed method and participant data in Quirkos and CAQDAS software

Even if you are working with pure qualitative data, like interview transcripts, focus groups, diaries, research diaries or ethnography, you will probably also have some categorical data about your respondents. This might include demographic data, your own reflexive notes

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What actually is Grounded Theory? A brief introduction

“It’s where you make up as you go along!” For a lot of students, Grounded Theory is used to describe a qualitative analytical method, where you create a coding framework on the fly, from interesting topics that emerge from the data. However, that's not really accurate. There is a lot more to it

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Merging and splitting themes in qualitative analysis

To merge or to split qualitative codes, that is the question… One of the most asked questions when designing a qualitative coding structure is ‘How many codes should I have?’. It’s easy to start out a project thinking that just a few themes will cover the research questions

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Using qualitative analysis software to teach critical thought

It’s a key part of the curriculum for British secondary school and American high school education to teach critical thought and analysis. It’s a vital life skill

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In vivo coding and revealing life from the text

Following on from the last blog post on creating weird and wonderful categories to code your qualitative data, I want to talk about an often overlooked way of creating coding topics – using direct quotes from participants to name codes or topics

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Turning qualitative coding on its head

For the first time in ages I attended a workshop on qualitative methods, run by the wonderful Johnny Saldaña. Developing software has become a full time (and then some) occupation for me, which means I have little scope for my own professional development as a qualitative researcher

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7 things we learned from ICQI 2016

was lucky enough to attend the ICQI 2016 conference last week in Champaign at the University of Illinois. We managed to speak to a lot of people about using Quirkos, but there were hundreds of other talks, and here are some pointers from just a few of them!

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Workshop exercises for participatory qualitative analysis

I am really interested in engaging research participants in the research process. While there is an increasing expectation to get ‘lay’ researchers to set research questions, sit on review boards and even ask questions in qualitative studies

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Quirkos version 1.4 is here!

It’s been a long time coming, but the latest version of Quirkos is now available, and as always it’s a free update for everyone, released simultaneously on Mac, Windows and Linux with all the new goodies! The focus of this update has been speed

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Participant diaries for qualitative research

I’ve written a little about this before, but I really love participant diaries! In qualitative research, you are often trying to understand the lives, experiences and motivations of other people. Through methods like interviews and focus groups, you can get

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Sharing qualitative research data from Quirkos

Once you’ve coded, explored and analysed your qualitative data, it’s time to share it with the world. For students, the first step will be supervisors, for researchers it might be peers or the wider research community