QDA Software

Notes perpainting to the use of digital tools to support QDA.

Friese (2019) on the affordances of CAQDAS, including comparisson of various software. Distinguishes between QDA and GT, and responds to Glaser’s criticism of CAQDAS. Seems to also relate to Glaser’s (2003) critique of modern versions of GT as being overly descriptive. Gets into the distinction between coding and tagging, and may relate to Belgrave and Seide (2019). Includes an appendix that relates the terms used in various software with functional applications in a theoretical and methodological sense.

Gorra (2019) examines how CAQDAS is actually used in practice, and found that researchers never stay within the software’s boundaries. Comes down to how the software is being wielded as a tool. She found that data portability was a major concern. Emphasized importance of enabling researchers to interact with their data, and to do so in whatever ways best suit them. Enabling researchers to take advantages of the affordances of digital tech, specifically the ability to look at the data in different gestalts, sapes, forms or guises. Emphasies a need for researchers to tae ownership over their data (similar to how Saldana and Charmaz suggest). FLexibility enables enaction of what Becker referred to as the tricks of the trade.

Concludes by identifying two different ways in which software could and should be used:

• to help with organizing the data
• for creative development of ideas

He specifically identifies specialist CAQDAS software as more suitable for the former, and other technologies in a more general sense for the latter.

Gorra (2019: 329) really emphasizes moving the data conciously between different media with the help of technology to see the data in different guises, shapes and formats.

In my view, GT theory construction is indeed a ‘pragmatic process of puzzling out’ (Timmermans & Tavory, 2012) and it is the process of Movement that helps to ‘solve the puzzle’, or at least helps with speeding up the process of making sense of the data. As a result of the process of moving data, thoughts and codes, the data are being reworked and changed with every iteration. This is what I observed my participants were doing with their theory construction. This is what they did at times with software, other times without, in order to construct meaning from their data, using a host of different technologies and media available to them.

Gorra (2019: 329) also aknowledges (and builds on prior related claims) that serendipity may have a larger role in GT, and suggests that “[s]erendipity can be encouraged by careful preparation, through the meticulous management of data – often supported by technology – but in addition what is also needed is the ‘creative free-play’ consisting of moving data and body.”¹

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Inaba and Kakai (2019) on text mining.

References

Belgrave, Linda Liska, and Kapriskie Seide. 2019. “Coding for Grounded Theory.” In The SAGE Handbook of Current Developments in Grounded Theory, edited by Antony Bryant and Kathy Charmaz, 167–85. SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526485656.

Friese, Susanne. 2019. “Grounded Theory Analysis and CAQDAS: A Happy Pairing or Remodeling GT to QDA?” In The SAGE Handbook of Current Developments in Grounded Theory, edited by Antony Bryant and Kathy Charmaz, 282–313. SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526485656.

Glaser, Barney G. 2003. The Grounded Theory Perspective II: Description’s Remodeling of Grounded Theory Methodology. Sociology Press.

Gorra, Andrea. 2019. “Keep Your Data Moving: Operationalization of Abduction with Technology.” In The SAGE Handbook of Current Developments in Grounded Theory, edited by Antony Bryant and Kathy Charmaz, 314–31. SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526485656.

Inaba, Mitsuyuki, and Hisako Kakai. 2019. “Grounded Text Mining Approach: A Synergy Between Grounded Theory and Text Mining Approaches.” In The SAGE Handbook of Current Developments in Grounded Theory, edited by Antony Bryant and Kathy Charmaz, 332–51. SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526485656.

Footnotes

1. This may also relate to the notion of “Informed Grounded Theory” introduced by (thornberg2011?).