Environment and Planning A 1997, volume 29, pages 771-787
Software for qualitative research: 1. Prospectus and overview
M A Crang
Department of Geography, Durham University, Science Laboratories, South Road,
Durham DH1 3LE, England; e-mail: m.a.crang@durham.ac.uk
A C Hudson
Department of Geography, Cambridge University, Downing Place, Cambridge CB2 3EN,
England; e-mail: achl005@hermes.cam.ac.uk
S M Reimer
School of Geography and Earth Resources, University of Hull, Cottingham Road,
Hull HU6 7RX, England; e-mail: s.m.reimer@geo.hull.ac.uk
SJHinchliffe
Department of Geography, Keele University, Keele, Staffs ST5 5BG, England;
e-mail: s.j.hinchliffe@keele.ac.uk
Received 20 May 1996; in revised form 29 October 1996
Abstract. In recent years there has been growing interest in the use of computers within qualitative
geography. In this paper we review the types of software packages that have been adopted and outline
some of their distinctive features. We discuss the intellectual and institutional reasons for the interest
in the software and highlight the ways in which such reasons have shaped the use made of these
packages. We argue that only a contextual account of how packages are adopted, adapted, and used
can explain the situation in geography. Furthermore we suggest that the archaeologies underlying the
packages—their theoretical presuppositions—are remarkably homogeneous and need to be
clearly understood before deciding how the packages might be used. We outline how some
of these presuppositions have affected the ways in which the packages have been used,
and develop—from our own experiences—some points about informal networks of adoption
and institutional contexts. The point of this is to suggest the minimal role played by formal
software guides and manuals in choosing whether and how to use a package. The paper outlines
the current 'state of play' and raises issues of future use to be addressed in a second paper on
this theme. Our intention is neither to sell a particular package, nor to say "to do X, use
package Y", because such recommendations are often misleading. Rather, our aim is to provoke
discussion about the use of software packages in qualitative geography.
Introduction
It seems an appropriate moment for a commentary on the forms of software designed
to aid the interpretation of qualitative material for three intersecting reasons. First,
there has been a rapid expansion of available software during the last five or so years.
Software has become increasingly user-friendly and compatible with the machines and
operating environments used by qualitative geographers. In short, these programs have
ceased to be the province of experts using arcane programming languages and large
processors. Second, and relatedly, an increasing number of geographers are adopting
such technologies, for a variety of reasons and in a variety of ways which we address
later. Third, the use of such software has reopened debates, if they can be called that,
over the reliability and scientific attributes of qualitative methods. Therefore, in this
paper and in a second (Hinchliffe et al, 1997) we seek to address and respond to what
we see as an interesting situation. We do not seek to proclaim some unproblematic
answer, nor any or all software as the answer. We regard this reaction to new technologies as unhealthy and unhelpful. All too often technology enters the social sciences as
a deus ex machina, credited with almost divine powers to remould disciplines and solve
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theoretical problems (for example, Openshaw, 1991; 1995; 1996). Instead, in these papers,
we interrogate the machines and the way they function and seek to provoke discussion
about the role of computers in qualitative geography.
There has been a boom in the use of computer aided qualitative data analysis
software (hereafter CAQDAS), with a mushrooming of seminars, symposia, and projects sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council. Such academic booms
involve both a quantitative expansion and & constriction in prior freedoms (Morris,
1988a), CAQDAS has become a buzzword in some quarters, in both a pejorative and
supportive sense. It has become something of a 'good thing', but it has also become
a symbol for hopes and fears about qualitative research. As Latour (1987) suggests,
'scientific' procedures become standardised and boxed—turned into a single word,
a single thing at the moment where an orthodoxy and power are inscribed in a
technique. We would suggest that this is now happening with CAQDAS. From being
an area of openness and some personal choice, it is becoming an area where new
technological gatekeepers are becoming ever more important (compare Shapin and
Schaffer, 1985). Perhaps as a result, software technologies look set to become the
required grammar through which qualitative analysis is spoken. We shall return to
the effects of this later. Meanwhile, given the methodological concern common in
qualitative work, it seems surprising that there has not been a study of the way
CAQDAS is moving through geography and the particular effects it may have within
the discipline. The use of qualitative software within geography would seem to raise
some fears particular to the discipline. This is, in part, because as a technology to aid
interpretation of qualitative materials, these programs come from outside human
geography. This is not some sort of disciplinary xenophobia. Rather it is to highlight
that, in a discipline where information technology (IT) has been the province
of nonqualitative geography, qualitative geographers have treated CAQDAS with a
certain healthy scepticism and a degree of naivete. We shall argue, however, that such
reactions risk taking these technologies as 'immutable mobiles', viewing these packages
as things which transfer procedures and ideas from one domain to another without
examining what is going on inside them.
To this end, we try to help researchers to make sense of, and make sensible
decisions about, these technologies. We have divided the issues into two papers: in
this paper we account for the current 'state of play' in geography; in the second we
address the possibilities and problems opened up by these new technologies. As a
collective project we have sought to utilise our diverse relationships to CAQDAS to
highlight the specificities of use and abuse of programs. In this first paper we strive
to address the questions of "where are we?" and "how did we get here?" We begin with
a discussion—curiously absent from geographical journals—of approaches to the
analysis and interpretation of qualitative materials. We then sketch the range of software and give some indication about their intended uses. Next, we examine the ways in
which the software has been taken up within geography and explore the networks that
it has formed, the routes along which it has travelled, and the webs that sustain it.
Finally, returning to a science studies approach, we suggest how CAQDAS, as a
technology, has become invested with certain ideas and meanings.
In this paper we begin with a detached viewpoint, an overview or survey, for the
sake of brevity. However, we hope to reveal the constructed nature of this position in
later sections where we highlight the importance of the specific routes through which
we, as researchers, have engaged with particular pieces of software. We argue that
getting the most out of these 'tools' involves refusing to view these programs as
invariant devices. Rather, we should be aware of their specific possibilities in specific
research contexts.
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Styles and expectations: the sense of a gap
A fundamental question faced by all researchers is: "what can I justifiably say?"
In contrast to more quantitative approaches, qualitative researchers have not produced
a definitive answer to this question. CAQDAS promises to help researchers to work out
what we can say; to codify the process of making sense of qualitative material; to fill
the gap sensed by qualitative researchers. Perhaps some of our uneasiness with the
packages is that geographers have not been altogether sure that they need this order,
especially because qualitative methods and analysis have often been adopted in an
ad hoc manner, matching particular and often idiosyncratic styles to particular research
situations. So, although researchers are lured to the packages by the offer of increased
ease of ordering and a structured approach to organising (field or other) materials, there
is a worry that this marks too much order. The ordering of research seems equally and
alternately a promise and a menace. This is especially so in the context of budgetary
constraints and the development of courses to learn particular software where the
choice of software packages may have important implications within institutions about
whether interpretive style will remain such an idiosyncratic matter. Choosing a package
for an institution or research project has effects on the types of analytical styles and
approaches that may then be encouraged (see the appendix).(1) Given that this raises
the thorny issue of standardisation in research practice, we are perhaps reenacting the
skirmishes between more freeform 'interpretation' and scientised 'analysis'.
In this section we want to put these moves into perspective, by outlining some of
the more formal approaches from which geographers have drawn inspiration. Our
purpose is not to outline the detailed practicalities of each approach, but to consider
how these approaches have been used, and in what ways they have created a sense of a
gap that CAQDAS promises to fulfil. We do not provide a comprehensive catalogue of
all conceivable approaches [as Tesch (1991) managed to identify at least 43 of those];
instead we want to highlight what geographers have sought through different
approaches. To do this it may help to think of three broad approaches to interpretation:
theoretically selective analysis; analytically inductive analysis or 'grounded theory'; and
formal structural analysis. We are not suggesting these categories are some menu from
which to choose, nor that they are all equally represented in different fields, but that
they offer some purchase on groups of approaches. At the root of our inquiry is the
suggestion of Richards and Richards (1991, page 39) that much of the interest in
CAQDAS involves an increased questioning of the criteria for judging the reliability
of our methods. In the past such reliability has often boiled down to either getting lots
of 'field materials' or lots of different materials ('triangulation'). Although both strategems are potentially aided by the sorts of packages which concern us here, these
packages sometimes promise rigour through the approach taken to analysis itself.
We want to probe why and how these ideas emerged, examining the three analytical
approaches in turn.
Theoretically selective analysis
A good deal of qualitative geography employs the 'informant quotation' as the most
visible sign of close analysis of qualitative materials. Generally it is clear that a particular excerpt has been selected for its pertinence to the argument of the paper, for its
apposite and illustrative contents or style. There are many possible reasons for using
quotations, but in this analytical style a quotation is selected according to the theory
of the paper or book. Quotations inform through illustration, 'showing', rather than
(1)
This might sound a little determinist at this point, but there is no doubt that the more
sophisticated packages are meant to 'read' in certain ways. We expand on these 'ways' later in
this paper and return to the question of determinism in the second paper.
M A Crang, A C Hudson, S M Reimer, S J Hinchliffe
'telling about'. At the same time they give a brief taste of the real world in the rarefied
portals of academic writing.(2) Quotations have the rhetorical effect of saying "I was
there", as well as the evidentiary effect of saying "this is what happened" (Atkinson,
1991). Too often in geography, this illustrative function has been relied on in an
unexamined fashion. The reader must trust that these do 'represent', in unspecified
ways, a wider reality. We know full well that the normal selection criteria are shaped by
the pressures of word limits, the need for pithy examples which do not sprawl into
unrelated fields, and the discovery of particularly evocative turns of phrase. We do not
argue otherwise, but do suggest that this has confused the functions served by such
illustrative materials. Indeed the most successful occasions for this sort of use are
perhaps those termed by Morris (1988b) "exemplary allegories" where the logic is not
one of numerical representativeness but theoretical fitness. Illustrative material is
chosen and interpreted in the light of how it helps to throw into relief certain important issues, as in the trope of an opening vignette out of which the significant elements
are then teased. There is, in the extreme version of this, no reason why such vignettes
could not be fictional. This may be acceptable and a very productive approach;
perhaps the obvious example is the construction of Weberian 'ideal types'. However,
we must then be clear that such materials are not 'empirical' informants that can be
turned to in an evidentiary manner. Bearing these points in mind, we turn to the second
analytical style which says more, perhaps, about how qualitative researchers turn their
materials into evidence.
Grounded theory
Whatever the final appearance of their texts, most qualitative researchers spend a long
time sifting, sorting, rereading, and analysing their materials, in an attempt to extract
important elements or significant features. If these processes do not form a large part
of the published output they certainly occupy a considerable amount of time. Perhaps
the dominant mode of qualitative analysis in geography is one of analytic induction
broadly conceived or, more specifically, grounded theory (see Glaser and Strauss, 1967;
Strauss, 1987). Most geographers utilise, perhaps unknowingly, ideas of grounded
theory in a fairly catholic manner. It is not our purpose here to debate the theoretical
differences of the 'analytically inductive' approach developed by Glaser against the
merits of 'grounded theory' propounded by Strauss (compare Huber, 1995; Lonkila,
1995). It is sufficient to say that each looks for the logics of respondents and provides
ways in which to develop categorisations based on qualitative materials, ways of coding
statements that then produce a logically coherent way of interpreting the reasons and
significance of statements in part of a larger schema. In this schema, initial materials
are fragmented into component issues embedded in statements and are then recontextualised according to the logics thus inferred. Quotations in final academic products
thus come to exemplify not so much, or not only, the informant, but the interpretative
logic of the analysis. Formally, this tends to be done by 'coding' or 'categorising'
statements and then relating statements between codes and categories in order to
make visible the reasoning behind particular attitudes and beliefs. For example, in a
project on international banking an excerpt from a transcript in which an interviewee
said "we have the power to enact legislation for the Bahamas" might be coded as
sovereignty; related to a section—"our laws are different from Cayman's"—coded
Bahamas versus Cayman; and the relationship or link between these two ideas labelled
(2)
In contrast, compare Pahl's argument that "if I had attempted to demonstrate the divisions of
labour by using single quotations from the many different and diverse households that were
studied, it would have done violence to the complexity that the interviews revealed" (1984,
page 278).
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as place. It is this lengthy and time-consuming process that most CAQDAS set out to
aid and speed up. Specifically, it is often suggested that computers allow more material
to be processed, so raising the 'methodological ceilings' on the amount of material that
can be analysed (Richards and Richards, 1994). This quest to 'enlarge the database'
arises, we believe, from the intersection of a set of relations and conditions around this
form of interpreting qualitative materials. For the moment it is worth mentioning that
not all researchers, and not all programmers, share this rationale for extending the size
of a study (for example, Seidel, 1991).
Formal structural approaches
Perhaps less common, though influential, is the more textual linguistic model of interpretation. Although this often appears to veer towards the ineffable—the sudden
scholarly insight—the idea of studying both literature and landscapes as texts has given
a certain momentum to studying formal linguistic structure. Perhaps thankfully, textual
analysis came to geography after the high water mark of formal structuralism and
without much of the baggage of linguistics. Still, it is apparent that materials are
studied for, say, their narrative form, the tropes they employ and/or the metaphors
and metonymy in their construction. For example, one might explore the ways in which
different sets of actors (private bankers, central bankers, politicians) talk about an
event (the development of the Bahamas offshore financial centre) to examine whether
they agree on the key events or turning points, where they tell a story of individual
heroism, teamwork, or accidental development, and which other actors they feel played
important roles. This style of analysis is inspired by approaches to history that focus
on the writing and construction of the world, as well as ethnographies focusing on the
textual construction of a sense of realism. As we have suggested, few accounts have
explicitly adopted structural models (indeed, most concur with the poststructuralist
critiques of such models), but implicitly at least they look to the structures that
generate meaning. In such a sense they focus upon the rules of discourse—the rules
that semiotics suggests produce meaning far more commonly than the contents of
utterances.
Our purpose here is not to judge the merits of different approaches, but to suggest
how they may map into different 'needs' and requirements for CAQDAS, to suggest how
CAQDAS may (seem to) fill the gap sensed by qualitative researchers. It is worth
stressing that our focus here is upon grounded theory, because it appears to be
symptomatic of the sorts of software adopted in geography and in many ways
expresses the limits of vision for such software as currently utilised.
Overview of software types
A recent and influential survey of CAQDAS by Weitzman and Miles (1995) attempted
a comprehensive assessment of the relative strengths and weaknesses of various
packages. They divided programs into four broad categories: text-searching databases;
text-coding and text-retrieval programs; more sophisticated text-organising packages;
and those which claim to use elements of artificial intelligence in developing theories
based on textual material. Although this seems a useful categorisation, we feel that
the last category has so far had a minimal impact, and in many ways obscures the
greater possibilities and different directions of some hypertext writing packages.
Further, the degree of overlap between the second and third categories is such that
we would prefer to regard them as a continuum. So we shall follow the broad outlines
laid out by Weitzman and Miles but will attempt to tailor the survey specifically to
geography.
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Text-search databases
The first and simplest software application is one that anyone who uses a wordprocessing package will be familiar with; it is the ability to search for specific words
or phrases. The existence of a search function within word-processing packages might
seem to obviate the need for specialist software, but we would suggest this is not the
case. Such an argument misses the speed advantages of specialist software. In contrast
to the pedestrian pace of word processors, specialist text-searching software can search
through several hundred pages of text in less than a minute and then display every
occurrence as a complete report. Text-searching programs have had a wide application
in literary fields to produce what are known as KWICs (key word in context), where
the search word or phrase is displayed with a section of (con)text around it, an amount
which varies from program to program. For example, one might use a text-searching
program to extract all the sentences or paragraphs containing the word 'sovereignty',
or the phrase 'sovereignty to enact our laws'.
We are willing to hazard that most qualitative geographers will treat these systems
with the scepticism which their limitations deserve. Searching in this way can be useful
in large, heterogeneous bodies of research materials (such as a library catalogue or
archive) but their use seems somewhat limited in qualitative geography. One reason is
that we suspect (and our own experiences tell us this is so) that, if you have conducted
interviews and transcribed them laboriously for hours, a text searcher is unlikely to
turn up many surprises. What gives these packages their speed is the way in which they
manipulate data: they take all the text into the system as a database, rather than
leaving it as discrete files to look through in turn. An important consequence of this
form of data handling is that many of the more 'sophisticated' programs (discussed
below) suggest they can do this form of searching but are in fact much slower than
their 'simpler' rivals, because many work by loading and then saving each case rather
than treating them all as a single database. As a result, we shall urge, and continue
to urge, a 'horses for courses' approach. Programs such as the Oxford Concordance
Programme (Oxford Computing Services) offer extremely rapid search capacities but
are limited because the material has to be specially formatted and then a different
set used for anything else. On the other hand programs such as Textbase Alpha and
Kwalitan allow these search functions, and in the case of the latter then allow you to
go to the original source of any individual incident to look at it in context, and also
allow a coding of materials as below.
Coders, retrievers, and concept builders
Mentioning the latter two packages leads us on to programs that are oriented around
an approach of coding and retrieving. This forms the central practical plank of much
analysis and most programs. The exact theoretical principles often vary slightly, but are
generally derived from grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Strauss, 1987) to
such an extent that this is becoming something of a common denominator among
programs (Coffey et al, 1996; Lonkila, 1995).(3) Essentially the process of analysis
informing these programs is the coding of texts, by categorising segments according
to topics derived either from the participants or from the theoretical perspective of the
researcher (for more details see, for instance, Agar, 1986; Cook and Crang, 1995;
Crang, 1997). 'Traditionally', coding was managed by physically cutting and pasting
material in photocopies to form stacks and piles of segments physically grouped
(3)
As Lynn Richards, one of the co-designers of Nud.ist put it "grounded theory is the bumper
sticker we all carry" (Seminar 1995). We might add there was also a minor scramble to gain
endorsement of programs from Anselm Strauss—who had an array in his office but himself
remained uncommitted (personal communication from Mike Fisher, University of Bristol).
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according to topic in what Agar (1986) called the "long couch or short hall" approach
(we return to this in the second paper). The vast majority of CAQDAS programs aim
to facilitate this process, but there are important differences in approach. Essentially,
the computer is being used to serve as an automated clerk, or a rather fast and flexible
filing system (Richards and Richards, 1991). The computer, in various ways, is used to
attach a code of some sort of a segment of text and allow its retrieval. For example,
having coded a pile of interview transcripts relating to the development of the Bahamas
offshore financial centre with codes including sovereignty and place, the user could
retrieve all the segments with one, or both, of these code words attached and collect
them together. Such a recontextualisation of these stories about sovereignty and place
might then help the user to think about the importance of those terms and their
relationship in the development of the Bahamas. Thus, although many fears expressed
about the use of software focus upon the alleged 'automation' of the process, it is
important to emphasise that at this level the programs simply allow researchers to
assign electronically codes which they would traditionally have put on paper. The
machines do not do the analysis.(4)
The central dynamic in the evolution of these sorts of programs is the development
of functions dealing with filing. For instance, The Ethnograph originated as a cluster of
ten separate programs gradually linked together, each performing some task of assigning
codes to segments, or search routines for codes. What grew was the range of functions
to search among the codes: to retrieve all similarly labelled sections; then to perform
Boolean searches; then to search for overlaps between categories (see Seidel and Clark,
1984). The principal differences between these programs emerge in the way they envisage
the categorising of material. What follows below then is an attempt to look at specific
functions, at what we might call the archaeologies of these programs. Although we shall
tend to consider specific programs along with characteristic functions, this should not
be taken to imply either that those programs only have that capacity, or that only those
programs have that capacity. In short, this description is not designed to be an allencompassing tabulation of functions [see Weitzman and Miles (1995) for a more
comprehensive overview, and the appendix for a more concise overview].
Although there is not room or scope to compare all the functions of all the programs, it is appropriate here to draw out some of the different visions animating them.
They are all based on the working practices of their designers, by and large qualitative researchers in their own right. Each program thus bears the imprint of how these
researchers have approached their analyses. Thus The Ethnograph maintains an idea of
grounded theory, whereby the user is encouraged to print out transcripts and doodle
down the side (that is, 'open coding'). The program then allows the translation of these
doodlings into a set of codes. Lines down the side of the text mark the overlaps of
codes and allow a nesting of codes and subcodes. Kwalitan echoes this process, though
not the display system. In essence, Kwalitan involves the development of categories of
increasing abstraction and includes a way of organising categories into a hierarchy, and
adjusting that hierarchy directly. The Ethnograph works well to retrieve segments of
text, which are initially decontextualised from the original interview, but arranged such
that all the similarly coded segments appear together. It is perhaps misleading to use the
term decontextualised as this represents a recontextualisation which very usefully allows
the juxtaposition of segments of any length, from several lines to several pages long
w
We are a little reticent in describing this as a simple mimicking of former procedures but we
address this unease further in the second paper. The point we are making here is that these
packages do not serve as automated analysers. An illustration of the point is the demo version of
Atlas/ti which carries an option to 'magically code' all items of significance and interest. When
chosen, the package cheerily informs the user to dream on.
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[but see Dey (1995) and issues we raise in the second paper]. Similarly, The Ethnograph
also offers the possibility of sorting materials by 'face sheets', into which are encoded,
for example, the sociodemographic variables of the interviewee, such that searching
can be done by gender or age as well as the content of the material. This might be
useful, to return to our example of the development of the Bahamas offshore financial
centre, to see whether there is a pattern of expatriates and locals expressing different
opinions about the benefits derived locally from hosting offshore financial activity.
A slightly different idea can be seen in programs such as Textbase Alpha or
HyperQual2. Both of these programs have explicit functions to integrate a range of
different materials; they both allow the precoding of prestructured data, such as
structured interview or questionnaire responses. Hence it is possible to do a preliminary sorting of answers to specific questions, as well as incorporate freeform materials
such as interviews or field notes. HyperQual2 does this on the basis of HyperCard
for Macs, sorting types of material into stacks of electronic cards, including one for
secondary source material such as official reports or press releases, which can include
both the content as well as other relevant information on publication and so forth.
Textbase Alpha and HyperQual2 therefore facilitate triangulation within the programs.
This may be a useful feature, if your project will involve triangulation, because in some
of the other packages this kind of cross-referencing and corroborating evidence has
been left out of the package and treated as a separate stage of analysis.
Nud.ist and HyperRESEARCH, two of the most popular and biggest Windows
packages, have a slightly different emphasis. HyperRESEARCH has a friendly interface and uses a simple mechanics for coding that is gradually becoming common
to virtually all programs; simply highlight the chosen text, click on the chosen code,
and the segment of text has been coded. Additionally, however, HyperRESEARCH
organises materials by 'cases' that then include individual interviews or a series of
interviews or field notes. This allows for a more complex arrangement of multiplesourced material, from different locations perhaps, a feature which may be of particular
interest to geographers. A further—and to our mind more dubious—feature is the
'hypothesis testing' function offered by HyperRESEARCH. In fact, this function
does not really test hypotheses, but rather provides a way of labelling cases. Thus
any case where a particular set of occurrences is noted can be labelled as a 'type'.
Although we can see some use in this, as a mean of grouping informants by their
concerns for example, we worry that HyperRESEARCH is marketed in terms of
'inter-rater reliability' and the possibility of making formal, that is, replicable, generalisations about findings (Hesse-Beiber and Dupuis, 1995, page 135; Hesse-Beiber et al,
1991, page 305).
Nud.ist has had a long evolution and it too starts from a system that is especially
sensitive to multiple sources of material. Indeed it has been modified to allow multiple
workers on the same project to collate their efforts. Again, it has a process of indexing,
whereby codes gain in abstraction. This is apparent in one of Nud.ist's most obvious
features, a hierarchical tree diagram of categories. This allows it to make the bold claim
to 'theorise', albeit in a different way from HyperRESEARCH. First, in obvious accordance to the precepts of grounded theory, its hierarchies could be used to move from
emic to etic codes, from codes contained within the data to more abstract codes
from the researcher's head or theoretical perspective.(5) Additionally and more importantly, like Kwalitan, HyperQual2, Hypersoft, and later versions of The Ethnograph,
(5)
However, this hierarchical pattern seems to work less well with theorising (though it obviously
does not exclude it) than with a more empirical categorisation. Thus the 'demo version' illustrates
separating materials by the empirical categories of 'mothers', 'carers', and 'children', followed by
a segmentation within each group by their associated empirical behaviours.
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but unlike HyperRESEARCH—Nudist encourages the use of memos attached to
segments of text. Researchers are encouraged to record their working ideas, contextual
information about what they felt during the interview, or notes about significance. It is,
then, possible to code and search through these memos in a cumulative process which
allows ideas and comments to be incorporated into the original material. The program
thus attempts to set grounded theory as a process of constant reflection against the way
many researchers claim to be using grounded theory when they are just 'coding5
(Coffey et al, 1996, paragraph 7.6; Lonkila, 1995). In order to fit the designers5 interpretation of grounded theory, the package is set up to encourage the multiple indexing5
(that is, categorising) of text segments. Nud.ist encourages overlaps and allows rapid
resorting and shifting, in part because the designers felt that manual methods made
this process so slow that there was an unhealthy pressure to limit the categories used at
too early a stage (Richards and Richards, 1991). Nud.ist is designed for the continual
development and refining of an indexing structure by reincorporating search results
into the coding of material. This refining of ideas is possible because of the extensive
searching capacities of Nud.ist. So, at a first cut, one might find all the instances
where mothers talk about employment, after which this subset could be searched for
subthemes common to just this group—mothers talking about employment of a
part-time nature, perhaps, and for themes that do not wholly overlap or occur close
to each other.
There are certain limitations, however, to a program which is organised around
hierarchical categorisation and progressive revisions. For instance, to adapt a branching, condensing, and bifurcating flowchart of incidents to the graphical tree in Nud.ist
requires some dextrous rethinking. Similarly, attempts to think about opposition and
differential relationships between types of codes sometimes map a little awkwardly
onto the tree-diagram approach. An alternative animating spirit can be found in
Hyper soft, which is another Mac-based HyperCard system (Dey, 1993; 1995). Hyper soft
has memoing functions and the capacity to produce graphics to 'test5 ideas about
relationships in the material (about which we have the same reservations as the 'testing5
in HyperRESEARCH). Hypersoft is able to revise codings, and has the capacity to use
initial retrievals and memos to build into later searches. Although it has a code and
retrieve mechanism, it discourages the building of hierarchies of codes; any such
hierarchies have to be based in the researcher's head rather than in the machine.
What it offers in addition is an ability to sort material not just via these codes but
through embedding electronic links directly between segments of material (see also
Cordingley, 1991, page 169). That is, instead of looking for meaning by comparing
bits of text, Hypersoft looks for meanings through links between them. This is a
different way of thinking with materials, where the researcher can trace connections
through the various materials. The program then allows a (somewhat crude) graphical
presentation of the structure of these links.
The graphical representation of linkages between codes is taken further by the
programme Atlas/ti. This program has appeared perhaps rather more recently than
most others and from the start was structured around a graphical user interface,
operating with icons and pictures rather than command lines.(6) Atlas/ti allows the
user to code and retrieve, and further to make notes and memos about specific
codes, documents, segments, or indeed 'free floating5 notes unconnected to the text.
(6)
We make this point both to suggest its attention to graphical styles and also because, until
summer 1996, the Atlas/ti interface was incompatible with Windows or other common 'graphical
environments'. Because Atlas/ti used its own specific graphical interface, installation required
some technical work and you often needed to reboot your system before switching to a wordprocessing package.
780
M A Crang, A C Hudson, S M Reimer, S J Hinchliffe
Each memo can then be assigned a status as a 'summary', 'critique', or whatever. The
real point of interest is how this process is then organised around graphical links,
representing what the designer terms "semantic links". Thus one click of the mouse
calls up a graphical presentation of the relationship of codes to text, and another click
take you to any segment of text depicted as relating to that code. Or, you can trace the
links of text to memos, memos to codes, codes to codes, and any permutation of this.
Most interestingly you can then draw new links or move the graphics around to show
different relationships, and the links you make on the drawings affect the links as
embedded in the system. You can drag a code and all the related bits of text over to
another and create a higher level category to link both or you can separate them. The
graphic interface provides another means to manipulate the material. This interface
will format links into a tree diagram if you wish, but unlike Nud.ist it does not demand
this. Instead, the program provides the flexibility to move elements on the diagram
directly with the mouse and specify the nature of the links [so the codes can be
arranged as anything from a flow diagram through to a semiotic square should the
researcher wish (compare Crang, 1997)].(7) Atlas/ti thus takes an approach allowing a
flexible movement from a 'textual level' of concern with the primary texts to the various
possible structural relationships between codes, their 'families' or groups, and their
logical relationships expressed through the graphical networks (Muhr, 1991, page 359).
It also allows the materials to be entered and stored as an assemblage of all the
'primary texts' along with their associated notes, memos, and codes, in a 'hermeneutic
unit'. One of the advantages of this is that it allows multiresearcher teams to work on
the same materials, where each researcher's work creates new entities in the hermeneutic unit that are annotated by date and creator. This terminology perhaps shows
some of the program's origins in that it specialises in the hermeneutic processes of
comparing texts, drawing links and differences. Thus, although the designer has specifically used some processes from grounded theory—and indeed terms such as axial
coding—it seems just as, if not more, embedded in other approaches to texts. Thus it
takes up the hypertext linking idea, not only allowing bridges between codes and
memos to the text to be generated but also enabling the researcher to map out itineraries
through the texts themselves and represent them graphically. For anyone working with
narrative modes of analysis, for example, Atlas/ti provides an alternative approach
to the 'delinearisation' of text into coded segments, allowing the linking of segments
and the specification of the sort of links between them (Muhr, 1991, page 357). Working
in this way with Atlas/ti seems to move analysis away from the approaches that have
been the focus of most of the packages we have mentioned. The program clearly opens
up possibilities for working with more textual or linguistic styles of analysis.
Delimiting CAQDAS
This last function then perhaps displays the symptomatic limits of these programs even
as it expresses the possibilities opened up by a more hermeneutic approach to analysis
(compare Coffey et al, 1996). The limitation is that all the programs currently spreading
through geography come from one social science background. Perhaps this limitation is
best expressed by thinking counterfactually—so the issue is not what tasks software
has been designed for, but rather to see which possibilities have not been developed.
Thus, symptomatically—and we are not sure whether this is a good or bad thing —there
has been no adoption of GIS-type systems into CAQDAS (compare Gilbert, 1995). To
date, no program offers to connect qualitative materials to spatial sociodemographic
(7)
These graphical representations can at present be exported as pictures that can be incorporated into later publications. The version currently beta-testing promises to allow their export in
HTML format.
Software for qualitative research: 1
781
data, though some programs might allow spatial sources to be factored in. (} Likewise,
no CAQDAS has emulated the systems being developed by local authorities and
libraries to link pictures, places, and descriptions into virtual palimpsests about landscapes. Equally, although CAQDAS programs offer powerful ways of looking at texts
they do not really allow the user to organise these verbal materials around, say,
corporate structures nor generally to record in detail the provenance of a document.
This emphasis also means that, although some programs allow the coding of off-line
material(9), and some programs (HyperSoft and Atlas/ti) can produce graphical representations, the overwhelming concern is with the spoken word.(10) One limitation
discouraging development in this area is that the standard textual 'product' of research,
and indeed hard copy produced during research, is very poor at retaining hypertext
links (Cordingley, 1991, page 175).
The linking of text and images in this manner is very common on the World Wide
Web, the function of which is not analysis but rather representation. In contrast, all the
CAQDAS programs considered in this paper have been seen as tools to help produce
'results' in different ways, results which are then taken elsewhere to be 'written up'. The
possibility of hypertext writing programs surely begins to raise a possibility of writing
through, rather than writing up, in novel and constructive ways, and opens up at least
the potential for new possibilities of interpretation and even the inclusion of reader
interaction (Coffey et al, 1996, paragraph 8.7; Gilbert, 1995; Landow, 1992). Although
hypertext writing is speculative and poses problems for the form taken by research
'output', we must be alert to the possibilities of linking 'analysis' to writing. Indeed, the
next revision of Atlas/ti promises to include a 'professional' version that will allow the
exporting of 'findings' as hypertext files (Muhr, 1996, personal communication).
Thinking of these future possibilities returns us to consideration of how CAQDAS
has so far been used in geography and what desires have stimulated and been generated
by its adoption. Our aim here is to demonstrate that no amount of abstract listing
of program functions will give the reader a sense of what is used to achieve what ends.
We want to show how and why packages were adopted and adapted, and through
this to think about the current context of their use, the 'state of play' in the field of
CAQDAS in geography. In recontextualising in this way we hope to be able to think
further about the future possibilities of using CAQDAS in geography.
Networks of adoption
Each of the authors has a different story to tell about their experiences with CAQDAS.
However, there are important similarities which can be drawn out of our diverse tales.
In this section we seek to indicate, first, that the ways in which these technologies were
adopted can affect the ways in which research projects are developed; and second, that
the ways in which these technologies are used are shaped by, and to some extent shape,
(8)
Several programs (for instance, Nud.ist, Atlas/ti, and Textbase Alpha) do, however, allow the
processing of structured materials or the generation of statistical output that could then be
introduced into packages such as SPSS (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL). Even so, it has to be pointed
out that some of the designers are quite critical of what use this might be and regard it as a very
limited option (Muhr, 1995).
(9)
For example, Nud.ist can attach codes to videotape, audiotape, or pages of material not
directly entered. In relation to videotape, Nud.ist does not store the video materials, but assigns
coders to specific time periods that can be recalled using software to link the computer to a
videoplayer such as C-Video.
(10)
The latest version of Atlas/ti also looks set to allow images to be incorporated as the primary
material, with codes attached to them, or links to other texts or images. The designer specifically
thought of interpreting paintings or nonverbal behaviour (Muhr, personal communication).
It also promises an improved graphical output.
782
M A Crang, A C Hudson, S M Reimer, S J Hinchliffe
the contexts of research. To ignore this contextualisation would, we believe, ignore
some vital clues to understanding the current status of CAQDAS in geography and
the ways in which the use of CAQDAS might develop in the future.
Each of us first encountered CAQDAS as fledgling researchers, conducting research
towards our PhDs. We were all conducting research which included an element of
intensive qualitative research. We all had a 'sense of a gap', feeling unsure of what we
were supposed to do next. What should we do now with our qualitative data we had so
laboriously collected through all the tribulations of interviews, groupwork, and ethnographic fieldwork? Each of us had a feeling of uncertainty, and a desire to maintain
some rigour and order in our analysis. Amidst the chaos and disorder of transcripts
and field notes we all felt the need for some way to order or systematise our analysis
and interpretation, not only to systematise our thoughts but our practices—at least
typing in codes or notes produced something tangible to show for a day wrestling with
our materials. Such a 'product' was reassuring given the absence of structure in the
PhD process.
This sense of a gap came before our encounters with CAQDAS, but once we
became aware of the availability of such packages they did seem to promise a degree
of order. Our introductions to CAQDAS were haphazard and informal: Mike Crang
and Steve Hinchliffe stumbled across a package in their department; Suzy Reimer and
Steve then became departmental neighbours elsewhere; during a visit back to his
former department, Alan Hudson bumped into Mike and a colleague using different
software. Our adoption of CAQDAS was not driven by any training programme or
systematic search of the possibilities offered by different packages. Rather, adoption
took place through chance encounters in social networks.
It would be fair to say that our views about CAQDAS now differ: from both our
pre-CAQDAS days and between each of us. Some of us are more sceptical than others,
in part because we used the software in different ways, adopting and adapting packages
for our own requirements. The use of such software has helped us to cope with masses
of qualitative material; to order the process of analysis; to juxtapose creatively different
voices from the field; and to remember events and ideas which we might otherwise
have forgotten. However, we are also concerned about the downsides of CAQDAS:
particularly that it provides an illusory order; and that it encourages the researcher to
collect more material rather than think more creatively with existing material. So, we
remain somewhat ambivalent about CAQDAS. We are also more realistic in our
expectations. It is clear that such packages do not provide a miracle solution for the
problems of qualitative research—the researcher still has to work out the appropriate
level of abstraction, for instance—and many of the functions they offer are unlikely to
be used by any one researcher.
The use we made of CAQDAS as individuals was very much shaped by the institutional context in which we found ourselves, and we, in turn, have shaped the institutional
context. In one case no sooner had CAQDAS been stumbled upon than it was being
incorporated as part of a mandatory 'research training' programme. Through our
interest in and experiences with CAQDAS we have, largely unintentionally, contributed
to the CAQDAS bandwagon. Somewhere down the line, and in differing institutions,
being known as someone who uses software has become a not entirely welcome badge.
For nonqualitative geographers it has become in some ways talismanic that this is what
we do. If we have so far noted what our use of CAQDAS meant to us, it is clear it may
have meant other things to other people. It is for these reasons that we now move to
reflect on the ways in which the use of computers is constructed in the wider academy.
This part of the paper links what we have said so far about the adoption and adaptation
of software in research projects with the concerns that we raise in the second paper.
Software for qualitative research: 1
783
The social construction of a good thing
It is important to address the desires and fears that surround CAQDAS. We have
already encountered the ways in which the programs provided a structure to which
fledgling researchers could cling and the ways in which the practices required coding of
materials and entering codes provided a tangibility to the process of interpretation.
CAQDAS gave analysis both a sense of direction and a product. Moreover—reflected
in the reactions of others—it is possible to tease out the fears and desires pinned on
this software. For example, it is still not uncommon for us to encounter rank fear and
scepticism from some qualitative researchers. This is not so much pure luddism as a
fear that mechanisation will reduce all the interpretative scope of qualitative work—
that the machines represent either an attempt to quantify the material (as concordance
search software can), or that they automate the process in such a way as to deny the
complexities and nuances in the materials. It should be clear we do not see these as
necessary consequences. Even so, it is true that there is a desire in some quarters for a
technique to make "respectable scientific data" out of fieldwork materials (Richards
and Richards, 1991, page 40; compare Hesse-Beiber and Dupuis, 1995). Although the
doubters often fear the computer as the Trojan horse of a shallow 'objective' science,
some enthusiasts want the credibility to be gained from using that notion. We see the
fear that the software will crudely automate analysis in the name of some spurious
scientised ideal as misplaced—or at least reliant on a particular conception of the
software or science. However, in the eyes of many (and as already noted), CAQDAS
has become somewhat of a talisman—people without knowledge of the processes can
now label us through the technique and the technique through the software. From the
first moment Mike used The Ethnograph, he became familiar with hydrologists looking across from other terminals and saying "so that is your programme", his otherwise
nebulous connection to their geography being fixed through the technology.
Although this labelling of a researcher through the software he or she uses may be
irritating, in other ways it has formed one of the hopes of qualitative researchers and
their institutions. Certainly, one of the attractions of CAQDAS is the legitimacy of an
established system adopted from the broader social sciences. Equally the process of
interpretation can now be boxed with the software and placed in a discrete sentence in
research grant application forms. Instead of difficult theoretical explanation, research
proposals can say simply "field materials will be interpreted using [for instance] HyperRESEARCH software". Equally, one point of resistance to teaching undergraduates
qualitative methods, at one institution, was a result of it being seen as reducing the
'scientific' content of the course, which in turn had to be squared against the lesser
amounts of money received for arts as opposed to science undergraduates. A physical
geographer was quick to see that laboratory classes on CAQDAS could be 'scientific
content'. Never mind that teaching a package may detract from thinking about the topic
studied (Tallerico, 1991, page 282). CAQDAS has rapidly come to be seen as a good
thing to have—even if it is never used as suggested. Meanwhile, discerning histories
of science suggest how possessing specific technologies becomes the way in which
access to scientific knowledge is controlled and spread. Thus departments have a stake
in becoming centres which can supply this knowledge. It is not too hard to see that
what is currently a 'bonus' on applications for research funds could quickly become
obligatory in the incessant interinstitutional competition being promoted in Britain at
the moment.
The adoption of this software also plays into some of the more deep-seated fears
and desires of qualitative research. Some designers recount their motivation for developing software in terms of how manually coding material committed much valuable
time to clerical work, while seeming to postpone the 'real' analysis (Richards and
784
M A Crang, A C Hudson, S M Reimer, S J Hinchliffe
Richards, 1994, page 148). This seems to stem from a common view that coding is
graft, hard labour, and neither as 'exciting' as the field nor truly academic. It is thus
something willingly consigned to a black box. Such a view suggests that the work of
coding is a time constraint to the possibilities of dealing with more material. In some
senses we suspect this plays to a desire for 'validity' by getting more 'data'. A contrary
view is one that stresses the conceptual thought in coding, that this is a period of
developing ideas and making connections. Thus the developer of The Ethnograph terms
the quest for expanding 'data' a computer "madness" (Seidel, 1991), and suggests that
what is required are programs that enable us to think more clearly and deeply about
our existing materials. That is, speeding up clerical processes and refining 'data management' should lead to more thought rather than filling the time with more material. It is
quite clear then that The Ethnograph is designed to encourage the building of more
complex systems of categories around a relatively small set of materials whereas
Nud.ist leans towards the multiauthor, larger project.
One of the central reasons for writing these papers, then, was a desire both to weaken
some of the myths surrounding these programs and to help a balanced assessment of
their relative merits. What we see as possible at the moment is a rapid ossifying of a
random pattern of adoption. Many institutions are currently launching research training
courses or new master's courses, and are also looking at buying one or other CAQDAS
package. We hope, therefore, that this has been a timely intervention for, at a time when
there is a creative plurality of strategies for fieldwork and writing, it is possible to see
this software as driving a new analytical orthodoxy (Coffey et al, 1996, paragraph 1.4).
Conclusions
Our conclusions of this first cut through CAQDAS and geography are necessarily
tentative. They aim to clarify where we shall start a second piece reconceptualising
how this software is being and can be deployed. We have been trying to show the
polarities at work in present ideas, each feeding off its opposite: there is a fear of
mechanisation, based on a particular view of what software entails; a promise of rigour
based on a particular view of science; an institutional patterning based on serendipity
yet aspiring to play on systematic appeals. Each reaction and strategy implies its
opposite. We want to look for a way round this process. To do this we believe it is
essential to look at—as Derrida might put it—the mis-semination of knowledge about
these programs, about how they are used in ways that cannot be simply read from the
manuals [indeed, which suggests how little the manuals are ever read (see Fielding and
Lee, 1995)] and the social relations that make their use significant. We are convinced
that greater attention to these issues will help to clarify the process of interpreting
qualitative materials. We are, however, fully aware that this should not take the form of a
new fetishism of the technical possibilities of ordering and storing data (Richards and
Richards, 1991, page 53). It is easy to become bewitched by the abstract possibilities
presented by CAQDAS, offering new functions, new configurations, and new analytic
tools. Instead we suggest that productive engagement and understanding will emerge
from the embedded uses of these technologies which we shall explore further in the
second paper on this theme.
Acknowledgements. Parts of this paper are based on a Symposium on Computers and Qualitative Geography held at Durham University, July 1995 and sponsored by the Social and
Cultural Geography Study Group: some parts were presented at the International Conference
of Social Sciences and Information Technology at the University of Stirling, September 1995;
the authors owe these audiences their gratitude for sharpening these ideas. We would like to
thank the three referees for their amendments and suggestions. Any flaws remain the responsibility of the authors.
Software for qualitative research: 1
785
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APPENDIX
Technical specifications for software
The following table is an abbreviated guide to some of the different technical details
and possibilities of some of the software packages available for qualitative analysis.
Readers seeking more detailed cross-comparisons of this sort should refer to Weitzman
Table Al. Guide to software packages.
Software
Designer and/or distributor
Virginia Systems Software Services Inc.,
5509 West Bay Court, Midlothian, VA 23112, USA
B Summerland,
Textbase Alpha
distributed by Qualitative Research Management,
73-425 Hilltop Road, Desert Hot Springs, CA, USA
Kwalitan
V Peters,
Postbus 9104, 6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands
HyperRESEARCH ResearchWare Inc.,
PO Box 1258, Randolph, MA 02368-1258, USA
Ian Dey,
Hypersoft
Department of Social Policy, University of Edinburgh,
AFB George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LL, Scotland
Qualitative Solutions and Research, La Trobe University,
Nud.ist
Melbourne, Australia,
distributed by Sage Publishing
T Muhr, Scientific Software Development,
Atlas/ti
Trautenstrasse 12, D-10717 Berlin Germany
Qualis Research Associates,
PO Box 2070, Amherst, MA 01004, USA
The Ethnograph
R Padilla,
3327 N Dakota, Chandler, AZ 85224, USA
HyperQual2
Meta Software Corporation,
125 Cambridge Park Drive, Cambridge, MA 02140, USA
MetaDesign
Sonar
a
Operating
system a
Windows
DOS
DOS
Windows
Mac
Mac
Mac
Windows
DOS
Mac
Mac
Windows
Which platform (DOS, Mac, Windows) is the package designed for? This does not take into
account the increasing ability of Macintoshes to emulate PCs.
b
Can the package work with prestructured data, for example, data taken from questionnaires
as well as unstructured material?
c
Can the package produce statistical reports? Mostly these reports work with prestructured
data, but they can be developed to work with unstructured data, to assess the statistical
relationships between codes, for instance (how often were 'sovereignty' and 'place' assigned to
the same chunk of text?) Most programs which have this facility are SPSS compatible.
HyperRESEARCH does this under a different rubric, a 'hypothesis testing' routine.
787
Software for qualitative research: 1
and Miles (1995) which tabulates 24 programs by 75 categories. Such a large table,
while needed to account for the different features available, risks being too complex to
comprehend. There are then two cautions necessary. First, any table—even Weitzman
and Miles's—is incomplete, because software is developing all the time. Currently we
know both of new versions being developed of programs listed here that may have
very different characteristics, and of new software altogether being written. Second,
we do not believe that most software is or can be chosen as though from a recipe book
to preordered specifications. Therefore, we cannot say "to perform function X, use
software Y"; the possible permutations are too complex. In addition, we are wary of
seemingly definitive lists which can so easily conceal an agenda behind their 'neutral'
tabulations. We hope this indicative list may provide a starting point for readers to
think about different possibilities.
Structured
data b
Statistical
output 0
KWIC d
Coding or
retrievale
Mernoingf
Concept
pictures6
Hypertext11
#
#
0
O
O
o
o
m
®
•
@
o
o
o
o
o
•
®
•
•
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
•
•
•
3
3
m
#
3
•
•
•
o
o
3
•
O
o
m
•
3
•
o
o
o
o
3
•
•
•
d
Can the package retrieve key words in context? In fact, all the packages can do this. Our
assessment refers to the speed and flexibility of this function. The rating 3 refers to a limited
capacity, whereas • indicates a high performance feature.
e
Does the package allow the user to tag sections of text with user-defined codes and to organise
searches using these codes?
f
Does the package allow the user to make notes which are electronically attached to chunks of
text during the course of analysis and which can be used later to develop working ideas?
g
Can the package produce a graphical representation of the relationship between codes?
h
Can the package link different pieces of text using Hyperlinks?