PRESENTER: Dr. Victor Fichera, Office of Institutional Research, Queensborough Community College

DATE/TIME/LOCATION: Friday March 25, 9:30am - Noon

This workshop will briefly describe and discuss the different types of qualitative research methods, including their purpose, strengths and weakness. The bulk of the presentation will focus on conducting the analysis of qualitative data, specifically textual data (e.g., responses from open-ended survey questions). The use of Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS) will be explained and several software products will be described (E.g., Excel, SurveyMonkey, Dedoose, QDA Miner Lite). Among the CAQDAS software packages there is great variability in terms of cost, function and ease of use. Alongside the description of the software products there will be a discussion of some strategies that should be employed when selecting CAQDAS. A dataset with open-ended survey responses will be shown and a simple qualitative analysis will be conducted. Subsequently, attendees will be given time to work on another dataset to apply what they learned from the presentation. After completing analyses of the data, the group will be asked to share their findings.

Learning Outcomes

After attending and participating in the workshop, attendees will be:

• Knowledgeable of the different types and purposes of qualitative research (QR) methods
• Knowledgeable of the methods used to perform a qualitative analysis of textual data
• Knowledgeable of the various CAQDAS products that might be employed to conduct QR
• Able to apply the above acquired knowledge to conduct a qualitative analysis of textual data
• Able to strategically select a suitable CAQDAS for a research endeavor involving textual data