Software is cut-and-dried – every button you press has a predictable effect – but qualitative analysis is open-ended and unfolds in unpredictable ways. This contradiction is best resolved by separating analytic strategies – what you plan to do – from software tactics – how you plan to do it. The Five-Level QDA® method unpacks the process so that you can learn it consciously and efficiently.
In this three-volume set covering ATLAS.ti, NVivo and MAXQDA, authors Nicholas Woolf and Christina Silver provide a comprehensive guide to qualitative data analysis using popular software packages. The first part of each book explains how the contradiction between analytic strategies and software tactics is reconciled by "translating" between them. The second part provides both an in-depth description of how the package works and comprehensive instruction in the five steps of "translation". these steps are illustrated with examples from a variety of research projects. The third part contains real-world qualitative research projects from a variety of disciplines, methodologies, and kinds of qualitative analysis, all illustrated in the software package using the Five-Level QDA method. Each book is accompanied by three sets of video demonstrations on the Companion Website:
https://www.qdaservices.co.uk/five-level-qda
Nicholas H. Woolf has worked fulltime as an independent qualitative research consultant, coach, and trainer since 1998. He has conducted or consulted to numerous research studies, from single-site to multi-national studies in various fields in the behavioral sciences using a wide range of methodologies, from highly structured content analyzes, to evaluations, grounded theory style projects, and interpretive phenomenology. As a trainer Nick specializes in teaching qualitative analysis using ATLAS.ti. He has conducted 285 workshops at over 100 universities and other institutions, primarily in the US and Canada, for more than 3,000 Ph.D. students, professors, and research and evaluation consultants. In 2013 Nick introduced Five-Level QDA in his keynote address at the first ATLAS.ti user’s conference in Berlin (Woolf, 2014).
Christina Silver has worked at the CAQDAS Networking Project at the University of Surrey, UK since 1998. She is responsible for capacity building activities and has designed and led training in all the major qualitative software programs, including ATLAS.ti, Dedoose, MAXQDA, NVivo, Transana, QDA Miner, Qualrus, Quirkos. Christina also works as an independent researcher, consultant, and trainer, supporting researchers to plan and implement computer-assisted analysis, and contributing to doctoral research programs in several UK universities.
