Analysis of qualitative data using MaxQDA Today the intention is to introduce MaxQDA as an aid to analysing qualitative data. The data that you will be working with are excerpts from students about their reasons for taking the module. The texts can be found on the CMR. Locate the texts and save to new folder MaxQDA on your M drive if you haven t already done so. The basic exercises that you are going to do involve: 1: Creating a new project 2: Adding data (importing texts) 3: Developing a coding frame (index) and coding (indexing) transcripts 4: Annotating texts/codes 5: Exploring the data Work through the following steps - preferably in sequence! 1) Creating a new project Select Start Menu, Programmes, Applications, MaxQDA 2 Insert your name in the user name text field (arrow 1). All of your work (e.g. codings and memos) will now carry your name. Select CREATE A NEW PROJECT and left-click OK. You will then be asked to name your project and to select a saving location. Navigate to your M drive and give your project a name. Then left-click SAVE. MaxQDA will now open the new project. After this, MaxQDA saves all work automatically. Even if the computer crashes, all material will be preserved. NB there is no un-do function like there is in WORD. 1
The 4 windows in MaxQDA 2 MaxQDA is based around 4 windows 1. Document System (upper left) Organizing: Contains all your data as a list of all texts organized in text groups. In MaxQDA 2 you can also attach memos. 2. Text Browser (upper right) Reading and Editing: Contains a text to read that has been pre-selected from the Document System. 3. Code System (bottom left) Contains all categories and subcategories of your project that you can assign to text segments. 4. Retrieved Segments (bottom right) Shows a list of the coded segments of text; exactly what is displayed is determined by activation of combinations of codes and texts. 2) Adding data (importing texts) You cannot add data until you have a text group to add to: these are project sub-sets based on any important defining variable. If the whole project is like a filing cabinet that holds all of the data for the study, the text groups are like the drawers into which you will place your data. The groupings you use will depend on your research project, but could be Interviews with patients, Interviews with Doctors, Interviews with Nurses, etc. To create a new text group, right-click on TEXT GROUPS, then select NEW TEXT GROUP from the context menu. Give the new text group a name ( Group1 is fine!) You can now import any.rtf document through the context menu of the text group. To do this right-click on your new text group, then click on IMPORT TEXT(S); insert the cdrom and navigate to the D drive. Highlight all of the texts in the folder by left-clicking the first, holding the Shift key down and then left-clicking the last text. Then left-click OPEN all of the texts will be imported into MaxQDA. 2
3) Developing a coding frame (index) and coding (indexing) transcripts The procedure that you will be following is essentially the same framework approach that you should have read about (Ritchie & Spencer, 1994). To work with a text, you first have to open it to read it; the fastest way to do this is to double-click one of the existing texts. Scan through the text. When you have done this, open the other texts in turn and have a read through them - several times if you can (they are all very short!). This is part of the familiarisation process. Make rough notes of themes that you feel are emerging. As you start to get a feel for the kinds of ideas or issues that are in the data you can begin to develop your index. In MaxQDA 2, the equivalent term is Code System. To create a new code to represent a theme or category in the data, right-click the symbol CODE SYSTEM and the context menu pops up (arrow 1). Choose option NEW CODE (arrow 2). A new code will appear in the list change the code's name to whatever you wish it to be. Often, ideas seem to form a conceptual hierarchy e.g. humour and denial could both be part of coping. MaxQDA (and similar software) make it very simple to produce a hierarchical code structure, although it is not prescriptive about this. You should develop the structure in a way that works for you. To create a subcode, right-click on the code you want to create a subcode within, and then select NEW CODE from the context menu. Re-name the new code as before. If you do not want to organise your codes hierarchically (or aren t sure where to put them!), use the system to create a category called Free Codes and keep all the disorganised or unhierarchical codes together - this prevents them being scattered all over the coding schema. You can always move codes into other categories as your thinking about the material develops. 3
Coding/Indexing data The next stage in the process is indexing, that is reading through each text line by line and applying the codes that you have created. To do this, you first select a segment of text by left-clicking and dragging to highlight it (as you would in Word). Left-click again on the selected text (arrow 1); keep holding the mouse button down and drag the text to the desired code word (arrow 2). As a success message you will see a green bar on the left to your text (arrow 1); moreover, the number next to the code in the code system will be higher by 1 (arrow 2). If you make a mistake, or change your mind about the coding at any point, simply right-click on the green bar, select DELETE, then DELETE again, and the code is removed. Although you might have already created all the codes that you will need in your initial index, it is more likely that as you read through the texts, other possibilities will occur to you and you will need to create new codes. Press CTRL+W and a dialog box titled NEW CODE pops up (arrow 2). Type in the new code word, and select OK (arrow 3). The new code will immediately be created, and the selected segment of text will be coded. 4
Text segments often reflect more than one concept in this case, it is perfectly possible to assign more than one code to the text. Codes can be easily deleted or modified at any stage. Individual codes, as well as whole hierarchies, can be dragged and dropped into any part of the coding tree - useful when you realise that you have put something in the wrong place! Left click and drag to move main code, shift-left click and drag to nest codes within other codes (i.e. create sub-codes). When you are happy with this procedure, continue reading and coding text from each interview in turn, creating codes as you go to reflect issues / themes that have occurred to you. Remember - you do not have to code every word! 4) Annotating texts Just as your index will develop as you read and think about your data, other ideas will occur to you maybe about interrelationships between texts, thoughts about the meaning of what is being said, links to theory, questions that you would like to investigate and so on. You can attach any of these ideas, anchor examples, theories, definitions, links to literature etc. as memos (just like Post-its) to the different elements within your MaxQDA project. To attach a memo to a text segment, double-click on the column just left to the column that contains the paragraph numbers i.e. the one with the 3 horizontal lines at the top When you do this, a dialogue box will open that allows you to type in as much as you like. 5
Please note: In the text browser it is only possible to attach memos to text lines. It can be particularly useful to make memos about codes how is the code defined at what stage was it developed, has it been moved around at all; anything to help keep track of your thinking in the analysis. To do this, right-click on the desired code, and choose CODE-MEMO from the context menu. The Memo dialog box appears. Please note that in contrast to memos in the text browser it is here only possible to attach one single memo to each code. 5) Exploring the data At some stage you will need to step back from the trees so that you can see the wood. In Ritchie and Spencer s FRAMEWORK approach, you begin to do this by manually charting your analysis MaxQDA has useful features that can help you with this process viewing Retrieved Segments, the Code Matrix Browser, and the Code Relations Browser. Please note that the following operations in MaxQDA will be carried out only on the codes and / or texts that you have activated. To activate codes or texts right-click and select ACTIVATE TEXTS (or codes). Activated elements are shown in red. Try this with your own data you can activate individual elements, parts or whole of the index or document tree. 6
Retrieving and viewing coded segments Right-click on your text group select ACTIVATE ALL TEXTS Right-click on CODE SYSTEM (the icon at the top of your index) select ACTIVATE ALL CODES. The Retrieved Segments window will show a list of segments of text, with information about the code that you have applied next to it, in a yellow box. Try left-clicking once on these boxes what happens? Right clicking on the grey area in between the yellow code-boxes brings up a context menu that allows you to configure the retrieved segments in different ways, according to how you would like to visualise the data experiment with this. By activating selected texts and selected codes you can create virtual charts to start exploring the data for associations and explanations. Experiment with this too. Code Matrix Browser MaxQDA 2 displays the frequency of codes you have used in a matrix. In the lines, the table visualizes all text documents; in the columns all codes. The frequencies of coded segments for each (activated) text and each (activated) code are visualized by knots of different size and colour in the grid. To open the Code Matrix Browser just click the CODE MATRIX BROWSER symbol (arrow) or press the shortcut CTRL+B. Double-clicking on one of the coloured knots (arrow 1) will bring all related coded segments into the RETRIEVED SEGMENTS window. Code Relations Browser The Code Relations Browser (CRB) provides an overview of the frequency of intersections between your codes, with access to the underlying coded segments. Similar to the Code Matrix Browser, intersections are visualized by knots of different size and colour in the grid. Mouse-over a knot brings up a window showing source information: the number of intersections and the names of 7
intersecting codes. Double clicking a knot will brings the related coded segments into the Retrieved Segments window. To open the browser you may just click on its icon in the symbol bar (green and red square) or go to CODES CODE RELATION BROWSER. You may also use the shortcut CTRL+ O. These tools can be used to help uncover patterns and associations (mapping and categorising) and finally to produce an interpretation, or explanation of what might be represented in the data. IN CONCLUSION This has only been a very brief introduction to computer assisted qualitative data analysis with MaxQDA. The programme itself has a comprehensive help file; there is also a full manual available as a.pdf file that goes into considerable detail about the application of CAQDAS. 8