1. Getting Started
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Lisa Given introduces qualitative research in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods (2008) as methodologies which are:
" ...designed to explore the human elements of a given topic, where specific methods are used to examine how individuals see and experience the world."
She continues:
"Qualitative methods are best for addressing many of the why questions that researchers have in mind when they develop their projects. Where quantitative approaches are appropriate for examining who has engaged in a behavior or what has happened and while experiments can test particular interventions, these techniques are not designed to explain why certain behaviors occur. Qualitative approaches are typically used to explore new phenomena and to capture individuals’ thoughts, feelings, or interpretations of meaning and process."
Essentially, qualitative research is concerned with both the experience and interpretation of data.
The Center for Research Quality at Walden University - an online University in the United States - has an accessible 12 minute video on Qualitative Research Methods with the voicework done by someone who wouldn't sound out of place in a cheesy infomercial:
Mixed Methods Research is increasingly popular, as digital tools make the blending of quantitative and qualitative data analysis easier to engage with.
As we'll see later on, NVivo helps with both quantitative and qualitative research questions.
Before we start exploring NVivo, it's important to articulate your research question and to understand the methodologies which will underpin its investigation.
At this point, the first thing I'd like you to do is to think about how you'll answer your research question, and whether or not its suitable for a qualitative or mixed-methods approach.
You might find that you don't really know the answer yet, and that's okay! NVivo is designed to help you explore your research and to critically engage with it.
I would like to put in a reminder here that even though you may spend hours learning and using NVivo; at the end of the day it just might not be the digital tool that you need. That's okay. At Research Computing Services, we offer a wide variety of other digital tools which might be better suited to your researcher methodology. I'd encourage you to check them out!