Computer-Aided Qualitative Research Europe

7 & 8 Oct 2010, Lisbon

For more information about our events, please visit:

http://www.merlien.org

To use or not to use:

CAQDAS usage patterns among

postgraduate sociology students in Croatia

Petra Rodik

Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Zagreb, Croatia

Jaka Primorac

Institute for International Relations (IMO), Zagreb, Croatia

Key research questions

• What factors are most influential regarding their CAQDAS

package choice?

• Are these decisions based on consideration of internal factors

– characteristics of a certain package – or external factors

such as availability, recommendations and similar?

• How do the various obstacles in access to new research tools

and their applicability influence the choice of their research

topics?

• How do researchers implement new ICT for qualitative

research methods in their research, or whether they do it at

all?

• What CAQDAS software they use (and why)?

• Do they use the collaborative options that CAQDAS bring?

Socio-economic &

Educational Context I

• The average monthly paid off net earning per person in paid employment in legal entities of the Republic of Croatia for May 2010 amounted to 5 277 KN (733EUR); the average monthly paid off net earning of research assisstant is 750EUR; while Scientific research and development was 7 748 KN (1076EUR)

• The registered unemployment rate for June 2010 was 16,6% (e.g. 11.2% unemployment rate in HR in 2009)

• ‘Taking into account the level of education, in 2009 the average number of unemployed of all educational categories increased. However, the greatest increase was in the number of unemployed with higher education, and thus their share in unemployment increased’ (HZZ, Croatian unemployment agency, 2009: 13)

Socio-economic &

Educational Context II

• Out of the total of 572 graduated doctors of science in 2009, 77.6% of

them obtained their degree at the University of Zagreb.

• The average age of graduated doctors of science was 38.1 years, while the modal group (with the highest frequency) consisted of persons aged 30 to 34.

• The largest number of doctoral dissertations in 2009 was defended in the fields of biomedicine and health - 22.5%, followed by social sciences - 19.2%; Social sciences - 90 theses in total, out of which 9 in sociology.

• Data on the members of the Croatian Sociological Association: Total

number – 278 members

ICT infrastructure in Croatia

Data: UN E-government survey 2010

• Croatian Academic and Research Network (Carnet), started as a project in 1991,

institutionalized in 1995;

• In November 1992 the first international communication connection was

established, which connected CARNet Internet exchange point in Zagreb to

Austria.

• Carnet was the first Internet Service Provider (ISP) in Croatia, and for several years

the only one.

Country Croatia

Rank 41

Index value 0.4220

Estimated Internet users per 100 inhabitants 50.75

Main fixed telephone lines per 100 inhabitants 41.85

Mobile subscribers per 100 inhabitants 133.95

Personal computers per 100 inhabitants 17.95

Total fixed broadband per 100 inhabitants 11.86

Postgraduate

students –

Qualitative

methods

Postgrad. st. –

Quantitative

methods

Researchers using

Qualitative methods

Researchers using

Quantitative

methods

Research methods in

Croatian sociology

Infrastructure of sociological research and

education

Sociology is taught at four departments: • University of Zagreb, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities,

Department of sociology (FFZG) • University of Zadar, Department of sociology (UniZD) • University of Split, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Department

of sociology (UniST) • University of Zagreb, Studia Croatica, Sociology studies (HrStud) Infrastructure of research institutes in social sciences: • Institute for social research (IDIS), Institute for International Relations

(IMO), Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies (IMIN), Institute of Social Sciences ‘Ivo Pilar’

• PhD program in sociology is taught at the national level at University of

Zagreb, but with the cooperation of all Universities and several research institutes (IMO, IDIS, and IMIN)

The qualitative methodology is present at the

departments in the following courses

• Qualitative methodology, Content analysis, Media research and methods, Qualitative analysis in social sciences, Culturological research and methods, Ethnographical approaches in sociology (UniST)

• Introduction to methodology of social research I and II , Qualitative research methods, Visual analysis, Discourse analysis, Media research and methods (UniZD)

• Introduction to methodology of social research I and II, Qualitative research methods, Content analysis (UniZG)

• Introduction to methods of social research, Qualitative methods in sociology (HRStud)

• PHD Programme: Qualitative research methods – Grounded theory, Mix Methodology;

• Note: CAQDAS are only taught at the PhD level, as a part of the Grounded theory course.

Employment prospects of

postgraduate students • The largest number of graduated doctors of science was employed in the

following activities: 56.5% in education, 16.1% in professional, scientific and technical activities, 15.9% in human health and social welfare, 3.5% in public administration and defence; compulsory social security and 1.7% in information and communication. There were 5.6% doctors of science employed in other activities, while 0.7% of them were unemployed (DZS, 2009)

• The greatest number of MA candidates was employed in Education, 19.7%, followed by Public administration and defence; compulsory social security, 16.4%, Human health and social welfare, 11.0%, Professional scientific and technical activities as well as Financial and insurance activities, 7.7% each, Information and communication, 6.4%, Manufacturing, 6.1%, and Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicle and motorcycles, 4.5%. There were 16.9% of candidates employed in other activities, while 3.6% were unemployed (DZS, 2009)

• Research and teaching activities – average contract: 6 years

• Transition form ‘secure’ assistant position to more unsecure

Case study research methods

• Short online survey among postgraduate

sociology students (31 sent, 19 responded)

• Snowball method

• In-depth interviews with six researchers who

have used CAQDAS

• For analysis: MAXQDA

Survey results

Short survey was conducted among 19 postgraduate students who

attended CAQDAS workshop during the doctoral program

• None of the institutions have institutional licence, 1 group (project)

licence (2 persons); 1 individual licence (funded by research project)

• Eight of them confirmed that they would use CAQDAS if the institution

where they worked had the licence (six noted ‘maybe’)

• Seven students used CAQDAS after the workshop, but only two outside of

doctoral courses obligations (but for Phd thesis)

• Eight students noted that there was no need or opportunity to use

CAQDAS, while four of them noted that although there was an

opportunity they decided not to use CAQDAS

• Decision for the analysis without CAQDAS was due to: software is too

expensive; it takes too much time to learn how to work with it, other

In-depth interviews

questionnaire outline • Why have you used ? What were other

reasons for choosing ?

• How did you acquire this software?

• What type of material did you use?

• In which way did you use software?

• Has software influenced your research process? In what way?

• Did you ever had the impression that software determines

some of key aspects of your research ?

• Would your e.g.conceptualisation of research be different if

you didn’t used software?

+ three questions regarding qualitative methods in general

Factors influencing CAQDAS

package usage choice

• The most important external: learning as a part of

doctoral studies (abroad); suggestion from

colleagues; workshops; usage of CAQDAS proscribed

by research project guidelines

• Other interesting external: curiosity; price; fashion;

giving credibility to research

• Internal: flexibility (Atlas); PDF-support (Atlas); visual

presentation (Atlas); one project – one file > security

(MaxQDA); portable instalation (MaxQDA)

“By using nVivo, I wanted to obtain, let’s call it

this way, a positivistic confirmation of my

qualitative aspirations... ( ) So... I am

usually prone to other types of research and

this was the first time that I personally worked

on qualitative research.”

Respondent, nVivo user

Advantages

• Highlighted advantages are mainly of general nature

• Simplicity of data handling

• Good layout, searchability, organization of data

• Easier overview of the whole research data

• Easier recoding

• Research looks “more professional”

• Focus on data (Grounded theory approach)

“With qualitative data it is always a question of their value in

relation to quantitative data. So I think that this usage of

software... however awkward it may sound, but in a way this

gives a credibility to it.”

Respondent, nVivo user

“Atlas helps with the exactness of data results.”

Respondent, Atlas user

“So these methods that I used before... Maybe there were other

ways, but these that I was acquainted with, were really

unpractical... All these pieces of papers and cutting, and

gluing them...It was like some process in primary school.”

Respondend, nVivo user

Obstacles, limitations, problems

• Majority of problems were connected to a particular

software package

• Technical problems: crashing of the program; bad

layout (nVivo), bad format for printing of code tree

(MaxQDA); unpracticality of families for

categorization (Atlas); code tree organization

(MaxQDA); problems with file paths (Atlas); lack of

intuitiveness in complex functions (Atlas)

• Learning time

• Great expectations

“Basically, it cannot do anything. It cannot do for you

the most important things. Unlike SPSS that does a

certain data processing.”

Respondent, nVivo user

“I have expected more from nVivo, and it drove me

crazy for months. I thought to myself – why on earth

I haven’t taken a normal suvey, put the results in

SPSS, take variables out and said, ‘folks, here are the

results’.”

Respondent, nVivo user

Conclusion I

• Small sociological researchers community

• Dominant tradition of quantitative research

• Qualitative research in rise

• Qualitative researchers – often PhD students with restricted

funding for sociological research (due to high costs of survey

research and similar)

• Many small scale research projects

• Postgraduate study does not imply greater employability nor

higher earnings; the knowledge transfer from social science

postgraduate studies to private sector is minimal; most social

science PhD graduates stay in higher education and state

funded research institutes;

• Thus, the motivation for research is mainly of intrinsic nature

Conclusion II

• CAQDAS rarely used, but spreading

• Not many users; Atlas, Nvivo, and MaxQDA mainly used

• Software is not easily available (price, institution does not

want to acquire it)

• External factors are crucial in software choice:

recommendation; exposure to particular software during

postgraduate studies (abroad) or workshops

• Only one interviewee had specific requirements in advance,

regarding the software capabilities

• Collaborative options that CAQDAS bring are rarely used

• Many survey respondents highlighted an intent to use

CAQDAS in future and interest for workshops

Computer-Aided Qualitative Research Europe

7 & 8 Oct 2010, Lisbon

For more information about our events, please visit:

http://www.merlien.org