Using NVivo to
Manage Qualitative
Data
Reid Roemmich
RHS Assessment Office
April 6, 2015
Introductions
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• Your name
• Department
• Position and brief description of what
you do
Presentation Outline
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What is Qualitative Data?
What is NVivo?
Importing Data
Finding Themes and Analyzing Text
Organizing Material into Themes
Coding the Data
Questions
What is Qualitative Data?
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Tends to be more descriptive in nature; relies more on
observation than on measurement; focus on the individual story
and thinking, feeling, emotions, etc.; usually involves small
numbers
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If on a survey, gives the respondent a chance to answer the question
in their own words
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Often gathered from focus groups, interviews, open-ended questions,
etc.
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Examples of qualitative questions:
• Please describe your experience living in the residence halls.
• What do you think about your supervisor?
• What improvements would you make to this program?
What is NVivo?
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NVivo is a software program that allows you to work with
and organize qualitative data
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NVivo can perform a number of different functions for
beginner, intermediate, and advanced users
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One of the biggest strengths of the program is that it allows you
to develop themes from the data which is an important function
when dealing with unstructured and diverse responses
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Can be used by anyone who wants to organize or more closely
examine qualitative data they have collected
NVivo Interface
Importing Data
Can import all kinds of material:
• Spreadsheets
• Word documents
• PDFs
• Videos
• Audio
• Photos
To import data:
• Go to “External Data” tab
• Choose the tab to whatever type
of data you are working with
(NVivo has “Documents”,
“Dataset”, “Audio”, “Video”,
“Pictures”, “Memos”
• Simply follow the wizard for
importing the data
Importing Data
Screenshots of what importing an
excel spreadsheet (Dataset) looks like
Find Themes and Analyze
Text
Once data is imported, one of
the first steps is starting to
make sense of the comments
by finding themes
Some tips for finding themes:
• Word Frequency Query
• Tag Cloud
• Tree Map
• Text Search Query
• Simply sorting through the
data yourself to find common
words or phrases used
Find Themes and Analyze
Text
Tree Map
Tag Cloud
Find Themes and Analyze
Text
The Word Frequency Query
also allows you to find similar
uses of a common term rather
than just the exact phrase
This screenshot shows what
that end result looks like
Find Themes and Analyze
Text
If you find you are getting a lot of common words
like “a”, “and”, “the”, etc. simply right click that
word and choose “Add to Stop Words List”
Find Themes and Analyze
Text
The Text Search Query follows a
similar process as the Word
Frequency Query but also allows
you to see the words in context
rather than just in a stand alone
format
Coding the Data
NVivo uses the term “Node” to
classify a category or theme
To create a node once you have
an idea of the theme or category
you want to use simply go to the
“Create” tab, click Node, and
name your node based on the
theme you discovered
Adding Data to Nodes
Drag and drop
Quick coding bar
Coding the Data
What the data will look like once it’s
grouped under a node
Conclusion
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Once you have the data coded into nodes you can play
around with many other different features not covered in
this presentation
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The most powerful aspect of NVivo is the ability to translate
large groups of text into a more meaningful and manageable
format with the themes (or nodes)
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NVivo Tutorials on the Assessment Website page provide stepby-step walkthroughs on many different functions of the
program
NVivo Tutorials
Step 1: rhs.msu.edu
Step 2: Click on “Auxiliary Enterprises” tab
Step 3: Look under “Assessment Office”
Step 4: Click on “Assessment Resources”
Step 5: Under “Software Guides” click the link to “NVivo
Tutorial”
Want to Access this Presentation
Later?
Step 1: rhs.msu.edu
Step 2: Click on “Auxiliary Enterprises” tab
Step 3: Look under “Assessment Office”
Step 4: Click on “Assessment Workshop Series”
Step 5: Find the relevant presentation suited to your
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Questions,
Comments?