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NVivo: Introduction and Basics

An introduction and overview of NVivo to help researchers organize and analyze qualitative data.

Queries

NVivo has some tools to help you dig into your data. Queries help you to explore your data for patterns & investigate hunches as you progress through your project. You can:

  • Find and analyze the words or phrases in your files and codes.
  • Ask questions and find patterns based on your coding and check for coding consistency among team members

Create quick and simple queries to get a sense of what is happening in the data, or build detailed queries for a more focused perspective. To create queries, in the Navigation Panel under Explore select Queries.

Word Frequency Query: Find what words occur most frequently in your text-based data

  1. Click Explore tab at top of screen -> click Word Frequency Query. [selected items: file->interviews and Cases-people-interview part; GROUP stemming; Word Cloud]
  2. Customize which Files/Items/Folders you want to query (default runs across all text based files even datasets and PDFs), the number of display words (note: if you selected language, NVivo will filter out stop words (a, the), minimum word length, and move the slider in Grouping to the desired level of matching (I recommend stopping at stemmed).
  3. Click Save Criteria button to save the query to run in the future -> click Run button.
  • Double-click a word to see its use in context of the data. To remove words, right-click and add the word to Stop word list and re-run the query. To automatically code a word in your Word Frequency Query results at a Code across the Files you are searching, right-click on the word and select Create as Code.

Text Search Query: See where particular words/phrases occur in the context of your text data

  1. Click Explore tab at top of screen > click Text Search Query.
  2. Customize which Files/Items/Folders you want to query, enter terms in Search for field (use Special button to combine multiple words with AND, OR, ~ to do a proximity search, etc.), and move the slider in Find to the desired level of matching.
  3. Click Save Criteria button to save the query to run in the future -> click Run button.
  • Double-click a result to see the word(s) in context of the data. To automatically code the words found in the query as a new Code, click Save Results… button and follow steps – and use the Spread to dropdown to indicate how many words to include in the coding.

Coding Query: Helps you to test ideas, explore patterns and see the connections between the themes, topics, people/places in your project

  1. [Code list open] Explore -> Queries->Coding
  2. “All” must be true (logic based); “Coded to” default); “All Sected Codes” then ellipses to select code. Select “infrastructure” then ADD logic row. “Coded to” and “ANY Case where” GENDER (leave at female) & AGE
  • More complicated Coding Runs; e.g., specific themes by attribute or look at overlapping codes. You can create new codes based on these overlaps & make comparisons.
    • "ALL" = boolean 'And'; "ANY" = boolean 'Or'
    • Code to Negative and Community change
    • "Any case where"= certain attributes are associated with specific codes

Visualizations

Word Frequency Visualizations

Located on the right-hand side of Query results at vertical tabs for visualization options:

  • Word Cloud – displays frequency of words from largest size word = most frequently appearing to smallest size word = least frequently appearing.
  • Tree Map – displays up to 100 words as a series of rectangles, where frequently occurring words are in larger rectangles.
  • Cluster Analysis – displays up to 100 words as a horizontal dendrogram, where words that co-occur are clustered together.

Text search Visualization

Located on the right-hand side of Query results at vertical tabs for visualization options:

  • Word Tree – Displays the results as a tree with branches representing the various contexts in which the word or phrase occurs. The size of the font indicates the number of times the word/phrase was found. Useful for finding recurring themes or phrases that surround the word.

Other Visualizations
NVivo has different methods for visualizing as your data. You can use these anytime.

Charts: create charts based on Cases and Attributes. You can choose from a variety of charts including 3D bar, column, and others.

Hierarchy Charts: visualize a hierarchy, helping you to see patterns in your coding or view the Attribute values of Cases and Files.

Maps

  • Mind maps - brainstorm ideas
  • Project maps - display items in project and their links
  • Concept maps - free form visualization

Cluster analysis