Blog Posts

A key principle of the Five-Level QDA(R) method is that analytic strategies drive software tactics. This ensures that software use is always focused on the objectives of the study and is appropriate to the particular methodological context. But what happens when software tactics drive analytic strategies? Here is the most extreme example I’ve observed. In my next post I’ll discuss when software tactics can usefully inform analytic strategies without actually driving the proc

“Translation” is the key concept in our Five-Level QDA method, so it’s important to know what it means. The word just showed up in the title of Susanne Friese’s blog post on the ATLAS.ti website – “Translating the process of open/initial coding in Grounded Theory” – and Susanne ended by inviting readers “to read more about this process of translation” in our textbooks on the Five-Level QDA method coming from Routledge in September. But as Susanne uses the word “translation” i

This blog post is a response to Steve Wright’s reaction to this comment I made on Twitter on April 27th 2017: “There are no basic or advanced #CAQDAS features, but straightforward or more sophisticated uses of tools appropriate for different tasks” Thanks Steve for starting this conversation – it’s really important to debate these issues, and fun too! See Steve's comments here The sentiment behind the Twitter post underlies the Five-Level QDA® method that Nick Woolf and I hav

Nick emphasized in his first blog post that Five-Level QDA is not a new or different way of doing qualitative data analysis but a method of teaching how experienced CAQDAS users unconsciously harness their chosen software. This is a critical point that I want to bring to life by sharing an eye-opening conversation with Dr. Michelle Salmona of the Institute for Mixed Methods Research. Nick and I recently went to the 12th International Congress for Qualitative Inquiry at Univer

You may be wondering what Five-Level QDA is all about. Perhaps you’re thinking it’s a new qualitative data analysis (QDA) approach, like discourse analysis, grounded theory or thematic analysis. It’s not. Here in a nutshell is what it’s all about. TOOLS AND MINDSETS Those of us who do QDA, whatever approach we use, all have to choose how to go about it – how to get the thoughts we have when we read data out of our heads and on to … what? Paper, a whiteboard, a set of index ca