Research. Relate. Realize
QSR NVivo 7
Lyn and Tom Richards, founders,
QSR International
This is a very brief overview of the main parts of a project
in NVivo 7, and the processes supported. It is designed to
accompany demonstration of the software.
Why NVivo Seven?
• Totally new & redesigned software
– So not just NVivo three
• Updates NVivo 2 and the NUD*IST line (N6)
– So it’s seven
• Designed for the future, not a re-vamp of past
versions, styles and approaches
– Early adopter of new technologies
– Ready for new 3-D “Longhorn” OS
– Annual major upgrades from now on
• Free for site licences and maintenance agreements
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So what’s it look like?
Familiar?
Orderly?
Normal?
It’s meant to!
And…
Manageable!
Customize it, to
suit your style.
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New Screen Layout
Navigation Bar
with Group
Buttons
Simple navigation, Microsoft Outlook style,
between the main parts of a project
Each project part
has its own folder
(you can create your
own to order items)
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Projects
Project Security and Integrity
Projects
• All data in a project, including all Sources, are kept
in a single securely encrypted database file.
• So porting and backing up is trivial.
• No chance of others tampering with documents, no
need for insecure doc file update log files…
• In fact, absolute project database integrity, even
through computer crashes.
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Save and Undo
Saves are not
automatic, but
reminders are.
Why?
UNDO!
At last, the qualitative
researcher’s pace and
process is protected.
Dropdown list shows
last five actions.
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Projects
So a project will look like this
Examples that follow use
the Sample Project that
ships with the software…
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\
Documents\NVivo 7 Samples
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What are your data sources?
Sources comprise
Documents,
Externals and
Memos
Plus folders
you create
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Sources
Make a new
document and
edit in NVivo
or import
straight from
Word
Use Externals to bring other data in
• Create and link to external files
• Format for coding
• Edit to include any illustrations or links to tape
segments etc.
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And your concepts and ideas?
Nodes and Coding
Nodes – five sorts of containers for categories and coding
1. Free Nodes (unordered)
2. Tree Nodes (for category/subcategory cataloguing)
3. Cases (for interviewees, people, places etc.)
Represent people, places, topics, concepts - entities
4. NVivo 7 introduces a thoroughly new sort of node:
Relationships Not representing entities, but making
statements.
5. And the final sort of node? Matrices (tables of qualitative
crosstabs, in which the data for each cell is coded at a
node.)
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First - free and tree nodes
Nodes and Coding
Create them “down” from design or “up” from the data.
Cut, copy, merge, paste to
design the node system, using
trees to catalog ideas
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Coding at nodes
Nodes and Coding
Code by drag and drop or many rapid methods
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Viewing coding at nodes
Nodes and Coding
View coding in live stripes on source or node content
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Cases – to hold what you know
• In your study, what is a
case?
– Make a case node and
code all material it.
– Auto-coding does this
• Cases can have values
of attributes
– Attributes store information
about those people,
places, organizations…
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Nodes and Coding
Attributes - of Cases
•
•
•
•
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Classifications
Attributes (like Gender) are properties you create for Cases
View as tables (“Casebooks”) of Case Nodes versus Attributes
Assign a value for the Attribute to each Case Node
Casebooks can be imported and exported, e.g. to Excel™ or SPSS™
Nodes and Coding
Relationships – making statements
• A relationship joins two Project Items
• A relationship makes a statement:
– ‘volunteering requires time’
– ‘family values encourage motivation to volunteer’
• Code the relationship with the evidence for the
statement it makes
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Nodes and Coding
What’s so new about Relationships?
• Relationships can be (and can code evidence for)
– Descriptions, analytical claims, hypotheses, properties of
things, etc.
• Display them in networks or groups in the Modeler
– Complex theories, event & process nets, structures and
organizations
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Sets are more flexible
Sets
• Sets can now contain a
mixture of Sources and Nodes
(including Case Nodes).
• Use them for temporary and
changing collections e.g. ‘To
review’
• Use them as scopes for Query
searches
• Collect them as outputs of
Queries (for further study and
Querying) e.g. ‘Women who
report excellent marriages’
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And links come in three sorts
Links
Three types of links
1. Annotations are similar to comments in MS
Word™
– Can list & inspect them globally
– Can optionally be text-searched
2. See-Also Links
•
•
to any Sources or Nodes or other project item
or to any passage in any Source
3. Memo Links
•
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any Source or Node can have its own Linked
Memo.
Find - locates Project Items
The Find Tool
• Look for them by name
• The Advanced Find option can handle
complex criteria for finding project items
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Query – in plain language
Query
• Queries are ways of locating specific content
• Queries can be saved for future use
– Re-run them later when data have changed – command
files effect
– Edit them to make a similar but different search
– Four sorts of query – text, coding, matrix and compound.
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Query
Text Search - like Web search engines
Check here
to save the
query
Looking for
either of 2
text items
Can choose if
text-search
Annotations too
Set the scope of
the search
Stemmed search?
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Many options for Query results
What to do with the
results? If you just
preview, you can go
on to save as a
node, etc.
Including some
context with finds
(spreading) can be a
good idea, especially
for text search
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Query
The hidden power of Text Search
Read Help on Text Search Queries to learn
about the hidden power of Text Search:
– Items with finds are listed with a relevance
weighting
– Boolean search: e.g. for items containing
“social interaction” but not “community”.
– Use wildcards * and ? (like in Word™)
– Proximity (how close do you want “fear” and
“threat” to be in a search item?)
– What weighting do you want to give different
words?
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Coding Query: Simple & Advanced
• “Simple”
looks for
coding of one
node in the
search
scope.
• “Advanced”
allows the
statement of
many criteria
in a natural
English way.
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Query
Matrix Queries – see it in tables
• Choose the
rows for the
table…
• Then the
columns…
• Then how rows
and columns
are related in
cells…
• Then Run to
make the table
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Query
The result is a Matrix that’s live
• Show counts of
Sources, words…
• Inspect a cell’s
content – it’s a
Node
• Export numerical
table as Excel or
tab-separated file
• Good one? Store
as Matrix Node for
future use.
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Query
Models
Models
• New format, new functions – can include connectors,
images.
• Live to data. Add associated items. (Use Find to select if
there are many!)
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Making layered models
Models
• Use groups to layer models
• Add associated items to show patterns of analysis
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Print Reports or export
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Reporting
projects
Coding Comparison Reports
• Compare coding
by two coders in
two identical
documents
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Reporting
projects
What of your legacy QSR Projects?
Merging
Projects
• Opens N4, N5 and N6
projects, and NVivo 1 and
2 projects.
• Converts them to NVivo 7
projects
Option to make Cases of
all Documents (since
Cases are more central in
NVIVO 7)
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Multiple Projects
• Run multiple projects
together
• Copy/paste content between
projects
• Project merging is done by
import of one project into
another – and you can
import just the structure (e.g.
all nodes but no content) or
the entire project.
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Merging
Projects
Where to go next? Of course, there’s Help
• Help! Online includes interactive “movies” of
Getting Started tutorials. Using NVivo advice is
integrated online in the Help files, Working with
your Data
• Please use Help!
• The QSR website has contact details of trainers
and consultants around the world, a wonderful
network of help and expertise.
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And the full teach-yourself tutorials…
• 10 tutorials for NVIVO 7 are free on the
web at
– www.sagepub.co.uk/richards or
– www.lynrichards.org.
• They go with the 10 chapters of Handling
Qualitative Data by Lyn Richards (London,
Sage, 2005).
– Use them alone or with the book.
– Work from the web or print out the .pdf file.
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And there’s the Forum – please use it!
• The QSR Forum offers web-based discussion
answering questions and providing ideas and
research strategies.
http://forums.qsrinternational.com.
• Please use it! Post your comments,
suggestions and experiences with NVivo 7,
and learn from others’ comments and
experiences.
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Come to the conferences
International conferences on use of QSR software.
Strategies in Qualitative Research
using QSR software,
University of Durham, 13-15 Sept, 2006.
http://www.qual-strategies.org.
Call for papers out now: deadline June 1st.
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And finally, our thanks - to
•
•
•
•
You for coming;
Your organisers for their work in creating this event;
Everyone who uses and feeds back on the software;
Qualitative researchers, for the challenges of making
software that will work with their methods.
Contacts?
For licenses, sales, information, etc about the
software, [email protected]
To report problems in the software, go to Support on
the website.
For us personally; [email protected]
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