Books & Literature

Book recommendations

Using Software in Qualitative Research by Lewins A & Silver C (2007)

Using Software in Qualitative Research

A Step-by-Step Guide
Lewins A & Silver C (2007)
Sage Publications, London

Be sure to check out the comprehensive and excellently-presented information on QDA software provided by Ann Lewins and Christina Silver in their new book. MAXQDA is one of the packages that’s being focused on.

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Table of contents

Processes and Tasks in Using Qualitative Software

Data and Their Preparation for CAQDAS Packages

Getting Started in Qualitative Software

Exploration and Text-Level Work

Qualitative Coding in Software

Coding Schemes

Coding Frames

Coding Tasks in Software

Basic Retrieval of Coded Data

Managing Processes and Interpretation by Writing

Mapping Ideas and Linking Concepts

Organizing Data to Known Characteristics

Interrogating the Dataset

Convergence

Closeness

Choice

Reviews

“The text is like having Ann or Christina at your shoulder guiding you through, explaining not only the practical steps, but why you might want to do something in the first place. A good marriage of methodological reflection and practical know-how.” (Duncan Branley, Goldsmiths, University of London)

“[The] authors have written a very helpful step-by-step guide, comparing different software packages, including ‘real research’ examples and proposing interesting tasks to the reader. This is a long awaited text book.” (Wilma C Mangabeira, Middlesex University)

Quick-Launch

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Customers worldwide

Testimonials

"I have recently compared MAXQDA's ability to import pdf documents with the current versions of NVivo and Atlas.ti, and just wanted to say that MAXQDA 10 is definitely superior to both products when it comes to importing pdf files."

(Aine Humble, PhD, Fada Research Consulting, Canada)

"Having worked with MAXQDA 10 a bit more now, I can honestly say that I find MAXQDA by far the best CAQDAS program around. Brilliant work!"

(Ko Koens, International Centre for Responsible Tourism, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK)

"I have tried a number of software packages for qualitative data analysis over more than 2 decades of research. MAXQDA stands out from the crowd. It is excellent."

(Prof. Simon Holdaway, Head, School of Law, The University of Sheffield, UK)

"The intuitive approach which MAXQDA was built up is so similar to the discovering process of categories and types that code book and memo system is always there to help you to develop your theory and models."

César A. Cisneros Puebla, Autonomous Metropolitan University, Mexico City

"MAXQDA's add-modules MAXDictio and MAXMaps are straightforward and provide the best, elegant and smart solution to represent complex relations between projects’ elements and several functions to analyze in diferent ways the lexical componenents of the entire texts."

César A. Cisneros Puebla, Autonomous Metropolitan University, Mexico City

"Congratulations to VERBI software! MAXQDA 2007, MaxMaps and MAxDictio offer a sophisticated, yet easy to use toolkit for qualitative analysts working with textual data. No need to learn a complex language or interface."

(President of Research Talk, Raymond Maietta)

"Easy to learn and very efficient to use. Thanks to the elegant and straightforward design of MAXQDA, you can easily translate flashes of insights into descriptive and theoretical codes, analytical models in the form of hierarchical code system, and various types of memos, without being bothered by complicated technicalities."

(Ikuya Sato, Professor of Sociology and Organizational Science, Hitotsubashi University,Tokyo,Japan)

"You can carry out highly fine-grained analyses of qualitative data with the help of MAXQDA's advanced options, including MAXDictio and MAXMaps. Simply the best of all QDA software."

(Ikuya Sato, Professor of Sociology and Organizational Science, Hitotsubashi University,Tokyo,Japan)

"What I like about MAXQDA is its ease of use (a low learning curve), the depth and breadth of its classifiaction and analysis functions, and the possibiltiy of conducting different kinds of qualitative or texts analysis simultaneously."

(Warren A. Hodge, Ph.D., University of North Florida, Department of Counseling and Educational Leadership)

"The combined strength of MAXQDA and MAXDictio expands the researcher's capacity to manage and analyze both qualitative and quantitative data. Your programs are true friends of the researcher who values qualitative and quantitative or mixed-method research."

(Warren A. Hodge, Ph.D., University of North Florida, Department of Counseling and Educational Leadership)

"The ability to easily import string and numeric selection variables provides an invaluable tool for relating complementary quantitative and qualitative research strategies. This and other features have made MAXQDA particularly well-suited for integrating ethnographic and epidemiological methods for a cultural epidemiology of various health problems."

(Mitchell Weiss, MD, PhD, Professor and Head, Department of Public Health and Epidemiology, Swiss Tropical Institute, Basel)

"The weighting, color coding, and ability to move groups of coded segments made the analytical process much easier than other tools I've used in the past. I have shown the program to a number of other doctoral students and they were amazed at the ease of use and flexibility of the program."

(Cheryl Fliege, Walden University, USA)

"I found MAXQDA extremely easy to use. I am basically using it for data management, and I do not know how I ever would have managed everything without it! […]."

(Rhonda F. Levine, Colgate University, USA)

"[…] The search tools are easy to use and make logical sense when you get the hang of them, and assigning attributes is easy. Ordering codes by weight was extremely useful in research where this was applicable. Those codes deemed most important using the data and team consensus could be assigned a weight and used in a very grounded way to show trends, develop narratives and so on. […]"

(Raewyn Bassett, Dalhousie University, Canada)

"I am using MAXQDA for my PhD Thesis. I think it is a fantastic versatile system - the ability to retrieve segments and keep them situated within their text is so useful."

(Thomson, University of Central Lancashire, UK)

"I have found MAXQDA very easy to use. It was especially useful being able to purchase copies in various languages as we were working on a multi-site project through Europe. In particular the ability to have multiple levels of coding was useful as was the code matrix. […]"

(Wendy Hunter, Deakin University, Australia)

"MAXQDA is a very easy piece of software to use and has made analysis an enjoyable and rewarding experience."

(Julie Clark, Thames Valley University, UK)

"I used MAXQDA to code and analysis case study data. MAXQDA made that process much more manageable and easy as it was a large scale project and included over 50 hours of interviews as well as media and policy documents. Having all that material in one file/coding system was very useful. It was also useful as we could save that material on a shared computer drive as the authors were based in different locations during the research."

(Bernie Grummell, UCD)

"MAXQDA is very easy to navigate, and to keep track of exactly what you've done. I like being able to open only those screens I want to work with and close those I don't. The weighting function has been unexpectedly useful to us."

(Ellen Pruyne, Lancaster University, UK)

"Very easy to get up and running with the program. Have shared it with doctoral students."

(Jenny Edwards, Fielding Graduate University; USA)

"The MAXQDA user guide is very explicit and explanatory. Overall, a great program for data organization and efficient retrieval of quotes. […]"

(Lisa Baker, Liverpool Women's Hospital; UK)

"It has been great to use MAXQDA. Easy to follow and very useful! It was great to be able to easily pull out quotes with the same codes and view them all at once across different texts."

(Joanna Sweetland, Institute of Neurology, London, UK)

"[…] The new version is very helpful and it offered me all the facilities I required. Being able to correct transcripts is good; memos worked well; and being able to copy and drop things into word is good. Frequencies are also another good feature, as is the weighting. The manual is very helpful. "

(John Harland, LC Research, UK)

"Service was terrific! I received answers quickly. Even with the time delay between Germany and the United States, I experienced virtually no delays in work when I had questions."

(Cheryl Fliege, Walden University, USA)

"The service was excellent. I was very pleased with the personal attention that I received when trying to decide if MAXQDA2 was the appropriate program for my project. When I decided to purchase MAXQDA2, I was given all the personal attention I needed for getting started. It was all very personal, efficient, and professional. […]."

(Daniel Lund, Griffith University, Australia)

"The service I have received has been swift and very good."

(Daniel Nehring, University of Essex, Department of Sociology, UK)

"The service has been fantastic - very professional, with all queries answered within a very short period of time."

(Thomson, University of Central Lancashire, UK)

"[…], extremely fast, very friendly, perfectly helpful."

(Stef Van den Branden, Interdisciplinary Centre for Religious Studies, Belgium)

"MAXQDA 2007 invites the user to use color and other visual tools to guide an analysis. The code relations and code matrix browser outline relations that result from coding. Using MAXQDA allows you to focus on your data and your reactions to it."

(President of Research Talk, Raymond Maietta)

"I absolutely LOVE this program and will use it in my professional life as well to analyze focus group information, complaint data, etc. […]. I am sure that I have only begun to tap the power of this program. I highly recommend it for anyone who is doing qualitative research and has to analyze transcripts, documents, etc."

(Cheryl Fliege, Walden University, USA)

"The intuitive approach which MAXQDA was built up is so similar to the discovering process of categories and types that code book and memo system is always there to help you to develop your theory and models. The add-modules MAXDictio and MAXMaps are straightforward and provide the best elegant and smart solution to represent complex relations between projects’ elements and several functions to analize in diferent ways the lexical componenents of the entire texts."

César A. Cisneros Puebla, Professor in Qualitative Methods Research in Sociology Department, Autonomous Metropolitan University, Mexico City, Editor of Spanish version of Forum of Qualitative Social Research

"I found MAXQDA extremely easy to use. I am basically using it for data management, and I do not know how I ever would have managed everything without it! […]."

Rhonda F. Levine, Colgate University, USA

"Easy to learn and very efficient to use. Thanks to the elegant and straightforward design of MAXQDA2, you can easily translate flashes of insights into descriptive and theoretical codes, analytical models in the form of hierarchical code system, and various types of memos, without being bothered by complicated technicalities. You can also carry out more fine-grained analyses of qualitative data with the help of its advanced options, including MAXDictio and MAXMaps. Simply the best of all QDA software."

Ikuya Sato, Professor of Sociology and Organizational Science, Hitotsubashi University, Graduate School of Commerce and Management, Japan, Tokyo

"What I like about MAXQDA is its ease of use (a low learning curve), the depth and breadth of its classifiaction and analysis functions, and the possibiltiy of conducting different kinds of qualitative or texts analysis simultaneously. In addition, the combined strength of MAXQDA MAXDictio expands the researcher's capacity to manage and analyze both qualitative and quantitative data. Your programs are true friends of the researcher who values qualitative and quantitative or mixed-method research."

Warren A. Hodge, Ph.D., University of North Florida, Department of Counseling and Educational Leadership

"The ability to easily import string and numeric selection variables provides an invaluable tool for relating complementary quantitative and qualitative research strategies. This and other features have made MAXQDA particularly well-suited for integrating ethnographic and epidemiological methods for a cultural epidemiology of various health problems."

Mitchell Weiss, MD, PhD, Professor and Head, Department of Public Health and Epidemiology, Swiss Tropical Institute, Basel

"The service was excellent. I was very pleased with the personal attention that I received when trying to decide if MAXQDA2 was the appropriate program for my project. When I decided to purchase MAXQDA2, I was given all the personal attention I needed for getting started. It was all very personal, efficient, and professional. […]."

Daniel Lund, Griffith University, Australia

"Congratulations to Verbi software! MAXQDA 2007, MaxMaps and MAxDictio offer a sophisticated, yet easy to use toolkit for qualitative analysts working with textual data. No need to learn a complex language or interface. MAXQDA 2007 invites the user to use color and other visual tools to guide an analysis. The code relations and code matrix browser outline relations that result from coding. Using MAXQDA allows you to focus on your data and your reactions to it."

President of Research Talk, Raymond Maietta

"[…] The coding margin is especially useful, showing which codes are assigned to which pieces of text. Being able to colour the code icon also helps give a very quick overview of coding to a document. The memo margin/column also provides easy access to memos assigned to text in a specific document. The code matrix and code relations browsers are very useful to give another overview of coding and relationships between codes, and are useful tables for inserting into manuscripts and reports. The search tools are easy to use and make logical sense when you get the hang of them, and assigning attributes is easy. Ordering codes by weight was extremely useful in research where this was applicable. Those codes deemed most important using the data and team consensus could be assigned a weight and used in a very grounded way to show trends, develop narratives and so on. […]"

Raewyn Bassett, Dalhousie University, Canada

"Service was terrific! I received answers quickly. Even with the time delay between Germany and the United States, I experienced virtually no delays in work when I had questions."

Cheryl Fliege, Walden University, USA

"Very easy to get up and running with the program. Have shared it with doctoral students."

Jenny Edwards, Fielding Graduate University; USA

"I am using MAXQDA for my PhD Thesis. I think it is a fantastic versatile system - the ability to retrieve segments and keep them situated within their text is so useful."

Thomson, University of Central Lancashire, UK

"The application is easy to learn and use, a particular advantage to non-technical users."

Kirstie Edwards, Sheffield Hallam University, UK

"I have found MAXQDA very easy to use. It was especially useful being able to purchase copies in various languages as we were working on a multi-site project through Europe. In particular the ability to have multiple levels of coding was useful as was the code matrix. […]"

Wendy Hunter, Deakin University, Australia

"Since MAXQDA is the only qualitative data analysis software that I have used, I can't compare it to other programs. However, I did think that it was quite easy to familiarize with and I LOVED the autosave feature because I constantly worry about saving my work and having backup!"

Janet Arcara, Emory University, UK

"MAXQDA is a very easy piece of software to use and has made analysis an enjoyable and rewarding experience."

Julie Clark, Thames Valley University, UK

"I used MAXQDA to code and analysis case study data (documents and qualitative interviews). MAXQDA made that process much more manageable and easy as it was a large scale project and included over 50 hours of interviews as well as media and policy documents. Having all that material in one file/coding system was very useful. It was also useful as we could save that material on a shared computer drive as the authors were based in different locations during the research."

Bernie Grummell, UCD

"MAXQDA is very easy to navigate, to code small or large pieces of text, to add and delete codes, and to keep track of exactly what you've done. I like being able to open only those screens I want to work with and close those I don't. The weighting function has been unexpectedly useful to us."

Ellen Pruyne, Lancaster University, UK

"I have had a very good experience with MAXqda. […]"

Jennifer Lasley, Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, USA

"User guide very explicit and explanatory. Overall, a great program for data organization and efficient retrieval of quotes. […]"

Lisa Baker, Liverpool Women's Hospital, UK

"It has been great to use MAXQDA. Easy to follow and very useful! It was great to be able to easily pull out quotes with the same codes and view them all at once across different texts."

Joanna Sweetland, Institute of Neurology, London, UK

"[…] The new version is very helpful and it offered me all the facilities I required. Being able to correct transcripts is good; memos worked well; and being able to copy and drop things into word is good. Frequencies are also another good feature, as is the weighting. The manual is very helpful. Also being able to change codes is an improvement on earlier versions."

John Harland, LC Research, UK

"Service was terrific! I received answers quickly. Even with the time delay between Germany and the United States, I experienced virtually no delays in work when I had questions."

Cheryl Fliege, Walden University, USA

"The service I have received has been swift and very good."

Daniel Nehring, University of Essex, Department of Sociology, UK

"[…], extremely fast, very friendly, perfectly helpful."

Stef Van den Branden, Interdisciplinary Centre for Religious Studies, Belgium