#Hyperresearch qualitative software software#

The term “unstructured” is applied here to delineate the types of manifestations the researcher deals with in opposition to so-called “structured” data, in this context a predominantly referring to numerical and statistical data.ĭealing with “unstructured” information–for example, interview transcripts, addresses, emails, notes, news articles, feedback forms, radio and television interviews, customer feedback forms, focus group reports, in-depth interviews, even images and videos–is traditionally less formalized and thought of as less rigid than quantitative approaches. Qualitative research frequently involves the analysis of any “unstructured” material. Thorough analysis forms the basis of this understanding. Clearly, the strength of this approach lies in the fact that it considers concrete manifestations within their particular contexts, and hence in its ability to address complex questions about concrete phenomena. Typically, the primary objective of qualitative research can be described as gaining insight into the attitudes, behaviors, value systems, concerns, motivations, aspirations, culture or lifestyles of individuals, groups, or even populations. Her method can be described as attempting to understand social reality through a methodology that is at once subjective and scientific. It can be said that the qualitative researcher seeks to deduce general (or generalizable) meaning through to thorough investigation of concrete phenomena. Qualitative research aims at understandingindividual issues, cases, or manifestations, to answer general questions. Typically, these include spoken, written, or recorded word, imagery (drawn, painted, or photographed), as well as moving images. Qualitative research is thus a prevalent method of inquiry in a great variety of disciplines – it can be applied in nearly all fields, where human thought, notions, mindsets, attitudes, or characteristics are investigated through concrete expressions. Qualitative research the exploration of human behavior as they are expressed in in individual utterances, manifestations, artifacts, and with the driving motives behind these expressions as they can be determined from them. Qualitative research has been defined as “a research method for the subjective interpretation of the content of text data through the systematic classification process of coding and identifying themes or patterns” (Hsieh & Shannon), as an “approach of empirical, methodological controlled analysis of texts within their context of communication, following content analytic rules and step by step models, without rash quantification” (Mayring), and as “qualitative data reduction and sense-making effort that takes a volume of qualitative material and attempts to identify core consistencies and meanings” (Patton). Although the term was originally coined in the social sciences, a great many related fields–from psychology to market research to media studies) today rely on methodology that can also be described qualitative research.

#Hyperresearch qualitative software software#

Testing undertaken by the REFI Coordination Group is indicated, where software was available within the scheduled testing period.The term “Qualitative Research” is commonly applied to a set of methods that are used in the social and human sciences. The REFI-QDA Codebook is available for use as detailed in the table below. Round-tripping means going from software 1 to software 2 and then from software 2 back to software 1. For the current version ‘round-tripping’ has not been tested. Because there are differences in how each program functions with respect to codes and their organisation, users may experience some modifications upon importing a Codebook into a different program. Implementation of the REFI-QDA Codebook means that a Codebook developed in one of these software programs can be exported and then imported into any of the other programs listed below. As well as listing codes in a Codebook, codes can also be organised in different ways depending on the software program being used. In QDA software programs, codes can be linked to segments of data in the sources where they are identified. These keywords/phrases are usually referred to as ‘codes’. A Codebook in a qualitative or mixed-methods project is a list of defined keywords/phrases that represent themes/concepts or other topics of interest to the researcher. The first phase was to develop the REFI-QDA Codebook.