In today’s climate, supervisors need speedy ways to find out what their postgraduates are thinking about their data. Students using NVivo software to manage qualitative data have access to some tools that make this easier. Supervisors can get a sense of the data students are using and the way they are thinking about it through looking at items from the NVivo project- without having to use NVivo themselves.   

This one hour presentation and demonstration discusses how supervisors can:

* See how students are coding their qualitative data through looking at coding stripes and at the coding system

* Help students avoid the ‘coding trap’ through discussion

* Get a sense of the spread of data through framework matrices

* Encourage rigorous analysis through discussion of coding and use of queries

* Have students illustrate their samples through charts and their ideas through maps

* Encourage consistent drafting of the data chapters as the analysis proceeds by using annotations memos, dot points, summaries of query results and maps

* Students can apply the same techniques to get more focused advice from supervisors as they work on their qualitative data.

This is not training in using the software. It is a demonstration of what the software offers that may make it easier to access the ‘headnotes’ a student has about their data well before those headnotes are written up as a first draft (and maybe ways to make the first draft a better draft).

Presenter

Dr Helen Marshall runs the NVivo workshops for postgraduate students at VU. She learned about qualitative research from Lyn Richards, the ‘mother’ of NVivo and has used the program as a researcher and a trainer for over a decade now.

Register for NVivo for Supervisors using your MYVU Portal login.

For more information about this session please email Researcher.Development@vu.edu.au