Category Archives: QDA software

These articles talk in detail about QDA software such as ATLAS.ti, MAXQDA and NVivo. They explain their differences in functionality, philosophy or naming conventions.

“The Magic of Data Analysis” behind the scenes

The poster “The Magic of Data Analysis” shows four different tools within MAXQDA for analyzing documents: Code Frequency, Code Matrix-Browser, Code Relation Browser and the Document Comparison chart. In this article we will have a look into the actual .mx-projectfile and understand how these results have been created. Continue reading “The Magic of Data Analysis” behind the scenes

How to Make a Birthday Present with MAXQDA

Being a historian I used to care little about video analysis. Until last year, when I was faced with a stupendous task. For a birthday I needed to turn dozens of hours of childhood videos into a short compilation. By importing the video files into MAXQDA, tagging the video track and thus segmenting the long video into many smaller clips, I was able to take a serious shortcut. So I finally get my hands on learning some video analysis and it also saved my nerves and improved the results with the power of qualitative data analysis.

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From QDA to XML: The REFI-QDA project exchange standard

With the continuing implementation of the new REFI-QDA project exchange standard by many developers of qualitative data analysis software, it now becomes possible to transfer projects from one software to another using an XML exchange format. This allows the use of multiple QDA tools on the same database and breaks open many of the limitations of proprietary software. Although some specialised functions can be lost in the transformation process, this finally opens the door to move projects from one software to another and to access them as XML files.

Continue reading From QDA to XML: The REFI-QDA project exchange standard

MAXQDA or ATLAS.ti? How software shapes research

On the surface MAXQDA and ATLAS.ti seem almost identical. Yet when we look under the hood, we see strong differences: one follows the logic of a relational data base and sorts everything into neat categories and the other operates like a graph data base that links different entities to form a large network. The implicit potentials and constrains of each (and any) software commonly drive our research because we too often follow the road that we already know best. 

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Review: “Analyse qualitativer Daten mit MAXQDA” (2019)

This book combines a MAXQDA manual with Kuckartz (2014). However, it creates a value that is greater than the sum of its parts. Although it sometimes tries too hard to be brief, it does well in combining methodological knowledge with technical questions. Unfortunately, the book has only appeared in German. Continue reading Review: “Analyse qualitativer Daten mit MAXQDA” (2019)