CAQDASchat with Christina
By Christina Silver
CAQDASchat with ChristinaMar 06, 2024
Christina chats with Eli Lieber, co-founder and CEO of Dedoose (online qualitative and mixed methods ap)
Eli Lieber, PhD. is co-founder and CEO of Dedoose, an online mixed methods analysis app, and also co-founder of the Institute for Mixed Methods Research (IMMR)
Find out more about Eli from the Dedoose website https://www.dedoose.com/about/team
In this episode, Eli recounts how he became interested in qualitative methods, having initially trained in quantitative methods, and then we chat a lot about the relationship between analytic methods and digital tools. This includes Eli’s thoughts on the rise of AI and how they at Dedoose are thinking about that right now.
If you’re interested in how the social world works, are passionate about understanding all its nuances fully, and believe that the way to do that is through robust methods, then you’ll resonate with what Eli has to say.
So pull up your chair, pour yourself a cuppa, and enjoy this CAQDAS-chat with Christina and Eli.
Episode Links
To read more about EthnoNotes, the predecessor of Dedoose, check out this article
Links to the textbooks Eli has co-authored
· Qualitative and Mixed Methods Data Analysis using Dedoose (Sage 2019)
· Qualitative Research Writing: Credible and Trustworthy Writing from Beginning to End (Sage, 2024)
· Symposium on AI in Qualitative Research (hosted by the CAQDAS Networking Project and the Social Research Association). Almost 6 hours of recordings available in 2 parts on YouTube about the rise and use of AI in qualitative analysis
· The Five-Level QDA method (CAQDAS pedagogy developed by Nick Woolf and Christina Silver that Eli mentions in this episode)
Christina chats with Jack Bowen, co-founder of CoLoop (ai-assisted qualitative analysis tool)
Jack Bowen is co-founder Genei.io (an AI summarization tool aimed at students and academics), and CoLoop, a qualitative analysis tool launched in March 2023, and what we mainly chat about in this episode.
Find out about Jack on his LinkedIn profile
Jack is one of the newer developers in the field of computer assisted qualitative data analysis, and he focuses on harnessing generative-ai for qualitative research. He's been building research tools using generative AI since graduating from the University of Oxford in 2020.
In this episode we chat about how Jack got into developing these tools, how they work and his thoughts on the impact of AI on qualitative research more generally, issues of ethics and data privacy in the qualitative-AI space and his thoughts about the future.
Enjoy!
Episode Links
- Symposium on AI in Qualitative Research (hosted by the CAQDAS Networking Project and the Social Research Association). Almost 6 hours of recordings available in 2 parts on YouTube, including presentation by Jack on the 'what, why and how' of CoLoop (starts at 00:09:50 in Part One.
- Blogpost by me about CoLoop, June 7th 2023
- On demand workshop featuring CoLoop, hosted by Instats and led by me
- The pessimists archive - snippets of hysteria, technophobia and moral panic that often greets new technologies, ideas and trends.
Christina chats with Prof Trena Paulus, Qualitative Research Methodologist/Technologist
Trena Paulus is a renowned qualitative methodologist/technologist and Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at East Tennessee State University. You can find out about Trena and her work at https://trenapaulus.me/
In this episode I chat with her as a friend and colleague; whose work has had a big influence on how I think and engage with computer-assisted qualitative analysis. We start off chatting about the origins of Trena’s interest in qualitative research. Then we chat about some of her contributions to the field of CAQDAS including her numerous publications and her thinking about technological advances, including the impact of AI on qualitative technologies. I’m glad we spent a chunk of this episode chatting about teaching qualitative methods and tools, from the challenges with teaching different groups, the differences between in-person and online teaching, and whether the teaching of method should come before tools, and the challenges of integrating the two. Trena also shares how her recent and current work on digital workflows and digital spaces with Jessica Lester came about and a little bit about where it’s going, and that includes the importance of intentional and reflexive thinking about methods, tools and spaces in designing research and the choices we make.
When we chatted Trena was visiting Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland as a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar.
We mentioned several articles and books that Trena has written – these are all accessible from her Google Scholar Profile
If you’re interested in the current developments and implementations around generative-ai in qualitative software that we chatted about, check out my blog series on the topic
The special issue in Qualitative Inquiry on exploring methodological consequences of digital workflows that Trena edited with Jessica Lester is free to access and well worth checking out
Trena also mentioned the Five-Level QDA method that I developed with Nick Woolf – find out more about that from our website.
Christina chats with Dr Susanne Friese, qualitative software specialist and founder of Qeludra
In this episode Christina chats with Dr Susanne Friese, an important figure in the qualitative software field since the 1990s, having worked with John Seidel, developer of the Ethnograph in the early 1990s, the CAQDAS Networking Project in the mid-1990s, and then for many years with Thomas Muhr and colleagues at ATLAS.ti.
We chat about how Susanne got interested in methodology and the use of CAQDAS and how software made methods tangible for her. We chat about her love for teaching and the challenges she observes that students have in learning and adopting qualitative software in a methodological context. We chat about her work with and role at the ATLAS.ti company over the years, including some of the features of that software that she particularly likes. We finish up chatting about Susanne's new endeavor, Qeldura.
Episode links
Christina chats with Dr Stuart Shulman, developer of Discovertext
In this episode Christina is chatting with Dr Stuart Shulman, CEO and Founder of Textifter, the company the develops the online qualitative text analysis and machine learning tool, DiscoverText. Stu used to be Professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts and was also founder and director of the Qualitative Data Analysis Program - a joint endeavour at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Massachusetts
In our chat we cover how Stuart became involved in using computers for qualitative analysis, which takes us from literary criticism, through organic garlic farming and political science to the development of collaborative online analytic tools that balance what humans and computers are best at. We chat about methodological dogma, opening up academic minds about the role of methods and tools, and advocating for tolerance and flexibility in methods. Stu also explains how Discovertext came about, and describes its five main sets of tools, and how they can be used for high-quality, rigorous and collaborative qualitative analysis of large amounts of data. Discovertext is free for academic researchers and Stuart tells us how you can get hold of it, and also reflects on how it can be used to teach qualitative analysis.
There’s a whole bunch of other juicy topics in this one, which raise some old and ongoing debates in our field, as well as some important things to reflect on as we move forward. Before we started recording Stuart was telling me about his gorgeous new puppy so there’s a few references to dogs along the way, in case you’re wondering. I hope you enjoy our chat. We recorded this around the time when all the hoo-ha about AI tools like ChatGPT and such were gaining traction, but Stuart recounts, machine learning isn’t new in our field, he first started developing them almost 20 years ago, and if you’re not yet familiar with what his tools can do, I hope this chat will get you motivated to find out what they can really do…
Find out more about Discovertext
Check out Stuart's LinkedIn Profile
Read Stuart's paper on rigor and flexibility in computer-based qualitative research: Introducing the Coding Analysis Toolkit
Read the CAQDAS Networking Project's independent review of Discovertext
Christina chats with Dr Kristi Jackson about qualitative methods, transparency, teaching and learning tools, old conversations and creative ideas for the future
Dr Kristi Jackson is a qualitative researcher, methodologist and trainer and co-author – with Pat Bazeley – of the very well-renowned textbook Qualitative Data Analysis with NVivo. Kristi has an enormous amount of experience through her own research and the consultancy, coaching and training she does through her business, Queri, and she shares some of this with us in this episode. We begin with how Kristi got interested in qualitative tools, and why she focused on transparency and digital tools for her dissertation, which leads us to chat about the role of software and the subcultures in our communities of practice. We chat about what we both enjoy most about teaching, the challenges of self-learning and issues with the emphasis in academia around individual career paths and expertise rather than collective learning and collaborative practices. Then we get on to metaphors, analogies, personalities and how our brains work in the context of teaching, learning and using qualitative tools. We finish up reflecting on pivotal moments in the past, and what she thinks we need to consider in the CAQDAS field as we move forward, and that gets us talking about being stuck in old conversations and some creative ideas for qualitative tools of the future.
Episode links:
Kristi's dissertation : Qualitative methods, transparency and qualitative data analysis software: Toward an understanding of transparency in motion
Kristi's book (co-authored with Pat Bazeley) Qualitative Data Analysis with NVivo (Sage Publications)
Kristi's LinkedIn profile
Christina chats with Professor Udo Kuckartz about his interest in qualitative methods and the development of MAXQDA
Professor Udo Kuckartz is the brains behind the qualitative software program, MAXQDA, one of the leading CAQDAS packages, and also Emeritus Professor at Phillips University Marburg in Germany. In this episode, Christina chats with Professor Kuckartz about how he first became interested in the use of computers for qualitative analysis, when he was doing his doctoral dissertation, and about his background and focus as a sociologist and methodologist. We also discuss the relationship between methods and technology and what has changed over the years. This episode is full of insights from someone who has been a key figure in the CAQDAS field right from the outset, and full of interesting insights about the past, present and future.
Episode links:
- MAXQDA software https://www.maxqda.com/
- MAXdays2023 free virtual conference https://www.maxqda.com/maxdays
- Professor Udo Kuckartz's ResearchGate profile https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Udo-Kuckartz
Christina chats with Profs. Nigel Fielding and Ray Lee about the history of CAQDAS
Introduction to CAQDASchat with Christina - what's this podcast all about????
A little hello from Christina to let you know what this podcast is all about. Find out who Christina is, what she does, and why this podcast came about.
Check out Christina's Linktree to access her CAQDAS-related activities and publications.
The CAQDAS Networking Project is located in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey, Guildford, UK
Christina does other work around qualitative methods and tools via Qualitative Data Analysis Services (QDAS) from where you can access her blog