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Digital Scholarship and Digital Humanities: Qualitative Analysis

Resources and information for students, researchers and faculty who are incorporating technology into their research, scholarship, and teaching.

Qualitative Analysis

Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) is a subjective form of text analysis where non-structured textual data, including interview transcripts, social media text, photographs, audio or video files, or almost any other information is closely examined to identify topics, narratives, structures, or themes. QDA can be done manually, on paper, but is typically performed with the help of software tools. If you are new to the technique, be sure to check out the theory guides on the left before diving into the software!

Related Techniques: Text Analysis, Social Media Analysis

This technique is part of the Analysis activity

Theory & Methods

Qualitative Analysis Tools

Qualitative Analysis Software

Dedoose

subscription (monthly, per user) | web-based | easy to learn

Online, collaborative tool for waulitative and mixed-methods research involving text, audio, images, video, and survey data. The platform includes many built-in visualization and analysis tools, but can also import and export data from other tools such as nVivo and MaxQDA.

 

NVivo

subscription or purchase required (student or academic) | Windows, MacOS | easy to learn

The de facto leader in qualitative and mixed-methods analysis software. Supports open and structured coding, basic text analysis, social media data capture (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube), and integration with citation managers such as Zotero and Mendeley. York has a discounted license (Windows, Mac) for academic use that expires at the end of every year. Faculty and researchers can get a perpetual license directly from NVivo, and students have access to a two-year license.

Project Examples

Related Techniques

Text AnalysisSocial Media Analysis