Session 5: CAQDAS

CAQDAS stands for Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software and is a great tool for qualitative research. CAQDAS has been criticized, however, for leaning toward the grounded theory approach and those who use it are encouraged to use it as a tool to help analyze more thoroughly rather than as analysis itself. You have read a document describing many commercially available CAQDAS and it is important to choose a software that helps you with your research rather than choosing one that is available and trying to make your research fit the tool. In this session, we will review the free program WEFT QDA. This program has all of the basic tools of the commercially available programs, but may not have certain features that you need for your research. This will, however, give you an idea of how CAQDAS works so that you can translate those skills to other programs, if you decide to use a different program.

We will use this manual as a guide to try to analyze the data we transcribed using ExpressScribe and Transana.

Final Exam- Add a final post to your blog in which you give feedback on the course including any tools you did not think were useful, tools you will definitely use and suggestions for additions. Also, feel free to add personal touches, such as a list of links that you have found during your work in this class or a profile which includes what you plan on researching. Please email me (angelone.1@osu.edu) when you have completed your final blog entry.