We had a really interesting discussion about the importance of choosing the words we use for codes carefully. Words connote meaning we may or may not want to associate with our data, and being precise (and consistent) with our phrasing is important both for our own data analysis and others' interpretation and evaluation of it.
And because these choices are so important, it seems odd to me that NVivo works best when you come with predetermined categories. I recognize that I come into my research with assumptions and goals, but I think I would feel strange defining categories before I know what codes are going to emerge. When I started the research I am doing now, I thought it was going to be about a six-week professional development workshop, and at the end of those six weeks, I conducted what I thought were exit interviews and tried to start writing the paper. And it didn't work.
I have been writing and revising this paper since August 2013, and sometime in November I came to the realization that I needed to be patient and let things unfold and emerge. I sat back and watched the teachers teach and listened to their stories. I took notes and marked conversations, and only now as the courses ended, was I able to identify enlightening moments and begin to craft a more robust narrative.
This is just a knee-jerk reaction. I'm looking forward to playing with NVivo and exploring its features. Maybe it is the right tool; I certainly like to Word interface. But I don't know yet. I'll have to work with the tool I'm glad we're going to get the opportunity to explore many of them.
You've raised good points here. While NVivo certainly allows you to be more emergent in your approach, a long standing critique of NVivo has been what is often 'read' as an a priori coding assumption. Of course, this critique is coming from qualitative researchers who want to wrote with more emergent approaches, recognizing that you can make NVivo do this. Yet, are there perhaps other CAQDAS packages that are 'better' at this? I feel like ATLAS is, but one thing lacking in ATLAS is the organizational structure that Nvivo offers in its coding tool. So, there are drawbacks and benefits across packages.
ReplyDeleteAnd, YES - language always matters. As qualitative researchers, we are in the business of producing worlds through our words. Reflexivity and transparency around our language choices is so very important!