Using NVIVO for Your Literature Review and Qualitative Research Project

The purpose of this training is to familiarize participants with a particular software package: NVivo. NVivo is a software that helps in organizing and analyzing of unstructured information as a basis for research and decision-making. The software provides a workspace to help at every stage of a project - from organizing the material, through to analysis, and then sharing and reporting. It is independent of the materials, field of study or methodological approach.

Target group

Researchers interested in using software for qualitative or mixed-methods research projects as well for literature reviews, at every phase of their research (at beginner, intermediate or advanced level).

The workshop will NOT cover any methodology but the software’s functionality.

Goals

Objectives of NVivo are to support in

• Spending more time on analysis and discovery, not administrative tasks
• Working systematically and ensuring not to miss anything in the data
• Interrogating information and uncovering subtle connections in ways that simply aren’t possible manually
• Rigorously justifying findings with evidence
• Managing all the material in one project file
• Working with material in own language
• Sharing work with others

Learning Outcomes

After the workshop, participants know the main aspects and functionalities of NVivo. In particular, they are able to set up a project, bring in material, organize material, analyze material and produce an outcome.

Furthermore, they are able to bring in qualitative data from social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) as well use other software such as reference tools (Endnote, RefWorks, etc.) in combination with NVivo.

Content and Method

The workshop will be held as a hands-on software course. In the first part of each day the functionalities of the software will be discussed. In the second part, each participant individually works on her/his project with the support from the trainer.

Day 1 – General overview, presentation of software and its main aspects (Basic)

Introduction and overview

The NVivo Structure: The Workspace and the Navigation View -

Hands-On: Creating a project and navigating around a project

Files - Organizing

Hands-On: Importing and transcribing documents, videos, audio files and images, working with external data, exporting sources

Reflection

Hands-On: Creating memos and annotations

Coding – Organizing and Reflecting

Hands-On: Coding and working with the node system: creating nodes, coding (different ways to code including auto coding, coding data including documents, videos, audio files and images), viewing the content of nodes in various ways, uncoding and ‘coding on’, working with coding stripes, moving, sorting and merging nodes, exporting nodes, strategies for creating node, building efficient node hierarchies

Linking: Connecting from project items to external data

Individual work on projects

Day 2 – Specific projects and analysis (Advanced)

Cases and Classification

Hands-On: Creating cases, classifications, attributes and assigning values

Analysis support – Queries and Visualizations

Hands-On: Grouping and exploring data, finding project items (simple, advanced and grouped find), queries (word frequency, coding, matrix coding and compound queries)

Hands-On: Modelling / Visualization

Organizing and sharing NVivo projects: sharing files and findings (with and without NVivo)

Individual work on projects

Please bring your own data!

NVivo can work with audio files, videos, digital photos and text documents, so you are welcome to bring data in any of these formats to practice with.

Formats that can be imported into NVivo include:

• Textual (.doc, .docx, rtf, .txt, .pdf)
• Audio: .mp3, .MPEG-4 (m4a), .wma, .wav
• Video: .mpg, .mpeg, .mpe, .wmv, .avi, .mov, .qt, .mp4, 3G mobile phone
• (3gp), AVCHD high definition (mts, m2ts)
• Picture: .bmp, .gif, .jpg, .jpeg, .tif, .tiff
• Dataset: .txt, .xls, .xlsx, ODBC)
• Evernote: .enex
• Bibliographic libraries (Endnote, RefWorks, Zotero)

You can also import demographic information about participants and facts about research sites or events into your project. If this is of interest, you may like to bring this information to the workshop in table format. To do so, prepare the table in MS Excel or Word containing the information from these documents that you intend to work with in the workshop.

Suggested readings and further link

Richards, Lyn (2009). Using NVivo in Qualitative Research. 2nd Edition. London: Sage.

Bazeley, Pat (2013). Qualitative Data Analysis with NVivo. 2nd Edition. London: Sage.

Videos, tutorials, resource articles, product trial version, etc.: www.qsrinternational.com

In cooperation with

Competence Center for Empirical Research Methods

• Knowing the main aspects and functionalities of NVivo
• Bring in qualitative data from social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn)
• Using other software such as reference tools (Endnote, RefWorks, etc.) in combination with NVivo.