Teaching qualitative analysis software with Quirkos

When people first see Quirkos, we often hear them say “My students would love this!” The easy learning curve, the visual feedback and the ability to work on Windows or Mac appeal to students starting out in qualitative analysis. We have an increasing number of universities across the world using Quirkos to teach CAQDAS at both undergraduate and post graduate levels. I just wanted to give a quick overview of why this can be such a good solution for students and educators:

1. Fits into tight curriculums
Because Quirkos can be taught from start to finish in an interactive 2 hour lab session, it fits neatly into a full module on Qualitative Methods. In one session students can have the skills to do qualitative analysis using a basic CAQDAS package, where other software would require multiple sessions, or a dedicated workshop as a full day event. Thus other sessions can focus on methods, methodology and coding approaches, with students able to quickly apply software skills to their theoretical knowledge.

2. Suitable for both post-grads and undergraduates
Quirkos offers enough features and flexibility to be included in research-based masters or PhD training. RTP (Research Training Programme aka RDPs) modules can easily link to a session delivered by university based instructors, without needing external experts to come in and deliver specialist software training. However, Quirkos is simple enough to teach that undergraduate courses in social science can include it in a module on qualitative approaches, and include lab sessions on the basics of software. This is a great basis for later doing research based projects, as well as a useful transferable skill for many industries, including public sector and market research. Since the basic operation of the software is the same, departments have the option to integrate undergraduate and post-graduate training, and use the same materials and course guides.

3. Approach agnostic
Quirkos does not encourage a specific analytical approach, and is just as suitable for emergent analysis as grounded theory. Students can be tasked with example projects to analyse with either approach, and choose a middle ground that works best for their own research project. The software gets out of the way, and lets teachers focus on the theory without worrying about how it fits with available tools.

4. A visual approach that underscores learning
Visual-based learning can help both understanding and retention and the way that Quirkos makes the coding process live and interactive helps students see their coding, and how it affects the analysis of a project. A very visual approach not only lets students see their findings emerge, but also understand visually what happens during qualitative analysis. By moving their themes and grouping them by drag-and-drop, students can also group topics in their framework, and use colours to represent different groupings. This provides a way of working that is inherently creative, experimental, and satisfying. Quirkos is the only software package based around a graphical user interface, and offers a unique way for students to understand the functionality behind CAQDAS.

5. Self-support and learning options
Students increasingly prefer online course materials they can consume in their own time. Quirkos helps educators by providing all our online support guides for free, giving students great flexibility in how they can learn. They can choose either written materials, or video guides of varying length and specificity, and access them without registration or any intervention from the department. Signposting to the materials is easy, and requires no special software or platform to access. We are always around to directly answer technical issues or queries from students.

6. Example projects
We provide several example datasets for students to use either in independent learning or guided workshops, at basic and advanced levels. These materials are free for course leaders to include in their materials, or students can download them as they wish. These can be very useful when undergraduates are practicing different qualitative approaches, or if postgraduate researchers wish to experiment with example data before working on their own projects. Since many RTP programmes are requirements in the first few years of a PhD or research masters (before data collection) this high-quality and challenging real data is a great practice resource to put training in practice.

7. A gateway to more advanced techniques
Quirkos aims to provide all the basic features of CAQDAS software, but without any of the bloat that confuses first time users who should be more focused on the data and methodological considerations. However, should students need to later move on to more advanced packages such as Atlas TI, MAXQDA or Nvivo, learning Quirkos is an easy access point, and encourages familiarity with the basics of qualitative coding. We also offer export options that help people get their data from Quirkos into other packages for further statistical exploration. Since the basics between all these packages are the same, Quirkos is the perfect first step in the door, and students with advanced needs can quickly learn other packages.

8. Flexible licensing for departments and individuals
While everyone can download and use Quirkos with the free trial, we also make sure that we can provide institutions with affordable and accessible permanent access to Quirkos and updates. We offer a site-wide ‘floating’ licence, ideal for teams or lab work that allows a set number of users at any one time, with the ability to add more users at any time. Smaller evaluations and research groups can also buy individual based licenses immediately with a credit or debit card. We are always here to help with purchase orders, IT and other logistical requirements. With significant group discounts, we are confident that we will always be the cheapest option for qualitative analysis software, and the best place for students to start out into the word of qualitative research.