LibGuides: CULANTH 424K: Medical Anthropology: Research Methods

Data Analysis

Qualitative Software Comparison Chart
from Paul Mihas, Odum Institute, UNC

NVivo helps you manage, analyze and report on unstructured data; including text documents (e.g. surveys, news articles, or field notes), audio, and video. Newest edition (10) has a capture tool for scraping web pages and social media.

Free download via Duke OIT

What is an observation?

A way to gather data by watching people, events, or noting physical characteristics in their natural setting. Observations can be overt (subjects know they are being observed) or covert (do not know they are being watched).

Participant Observation

Researcher becomes a participant in the culture or context being observed.
Requires researcher to be accepted as part of culture being observed in order for success

Direct Observation

Researcher strives to be as unobtrusive as possible so as not to bias the observations; more detached.
Technology can be useful (i.e video, audiorecording).

Indirect Observation

Results of an interaction, process or behavior are observed (for example, measuring the amount of plate waste left by students in a school cafeteria to determine whether a new food is acceptable to them).

Transcription Software

Please note these suggestions are not endorsements of these products.

Dragon Naturally Speaking
Speech recognition software package for Windows personal computers, developed and sold by Nuance Communications. Must be trained to recognize a person's voice so may have limited use for transcription of more than one voice.

Express Scribe
A transcription assistance program for PC or Mac; control audio playback using a transcription foot pedal or keyboard (with 'function' keys). The free version supports common audio formats, including wav, mp3, wma and dct.

Choosing a Method for Collecting Qualitative Data

Method	Overall Purpose	Advantages	Challenges
Surveys	Quickly and/or easily gets lots of information from people in a non threatening way	can complete anonymously inexpensive to administer easy to compare and analyze administer to many people can get lots of data many sample questionnaires already exist	might not get careful feedback wording can bias client's responses impersonal may need sampling expert doesn't get full story
Interviews	Understand someone's impressions or experiences Learn more about answers to questionnaires	get full range and depth of information develops relationship with client can be flexible with client	can take ime can be hard to analyze and compare can be costly interviewer can bias client's responses
Observation	Gather firsthand information about people, events, or programs	view operations of a program as they are actually occurring can adapt to events as they occur	can be difficult to interpret seen behaviors can be complex to categorize observations can influence behaviors of program participants can be expensive
Focus groups	Explore a topic in depth through group discussion	quickly and reliably get common impressions can be efficient way to get much range and depth of information in short time can convey key information about programs	can be hard to analyze responses need good facilitator for safety and closure difficult to schedule 6-8 people together
Case studies	Understand an experience or conduct comprehensive examination through cross comparison of cases	depicts client's experience in program input, process and results powerful means to portray program to outsiders	usually time consuming to collect, organize and describe represents depth of information, rather than breadth