1. Organising Your Coding

Managing Your Nodes

Node management is critical in NVivo. When I initially started my own research, I thought that I would only ever have to code once based solely on the themes which had emerged from the relevant literature on the subject I was studying.

However, I soon realised that I needed to iterate on my coding, as new connections and structures had emerged from my data which I hadn't anticipated.

I first thought that this was a failure on my part as a researcher, that I had missed something important because I hadn't done good enough research.

This was the wrong conclusion to draw. Instead, iterating on your coding and reorganising is part of the research process. When you organise and manage your nodes in NVivo it means that you are reflecting and engaging critically with your research. It is a vital part of the research process.

Video: 5 Tips for Coding in NVivo

5 Tips for Coding in NVivo: Qualitative Research methods by Mod-U (2019)

Now that you know the basics of NVivo, you can begin to work within their "Sample Project". This file contains an entire research project and it can be quite intimidating to work through.

My advice would be to focus on the specific tasks at the end of each section, and to not worry too much about the broader features of the project, as they should become clearer as we move through the modules.

As always, I hope that these modules are designed in such a way that you can follow along with your own research data.

Video: Manage Nodes with NVivo 12

Windows

Manage nodes with NVivo 12 by QSR (2018)

Mac

Manage nodes with NVivo 12 Mac (2018)

Task: Organising Your Nodes

1. Uncode some text from a node

2. Create a new node as part of an existing node

3. Rename an existing node

4. Try dragging nodes to reorganise them