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CAQDAS at a Crossroads: Choices, Controversies and Challenges

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Computer Supported Qualitative Research (ISQR 2017)

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 621))

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Abstract

The field of Computer Assisted Qualitative Data AnalysiS (CAQDAS) is characterised by choices, controversies and challenges. This chapter first briefly outlines the history of the field and discusses choices between and within programs. It goes on to discuss persisting controversies around the appropriateness of using technology for qualitative data analysis. It then outlines challenges arising from these choices and controversies. The chapter concludes by discussing how the Five-Level QDA™ method, a CAQDAS pedagogy that transcends methodologies, software programs and teaching modes, addresses one of the key challenges: how to appropriately enable researchers with varied needs to harness CAQDAS packages powerfully.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The acronym CAQDAS was coined by Raymond Lee and Nigel Fielding in their 1991 book Using Computers in Qualitative Research, which was published following the first conference on qualitative software that they convened in 1989, the Surrey Research Methods Conference (Fielding & Lee, 1991). In 1994 Fielding and Lee went on to establish the CAQDAS Networking Project (CNP) at the University of Surrey, UK, which became an internationally reputed and independent source for practical support, training, information and debate in the use of these technologies. The establishment of the CNP had the effect of ‘fixing’ the acronym. However, other authors (e.g., Bazeley & Jackson, 2013; di Gregorio & Davidson, 2008) refer to this group of software programs as QDAS (Qualitative Data Analysis Software). However, this acronym can be misunderstood to mean software that performs analysis, which none of the writers who use the acronym intend to mean (Woolf & Silver, in press). This chapter uses the term CAQDAS.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CAQDAS Networking Project Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK

    Christina Silver

  2. Qualitative Data Analysis Services, Gillingham, UK

    Christina Silver

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  1. Christina Silver
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Correspondence to Christina Silver .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Education and Psychology Department, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

    António Pedro Costa

  2. Information Systems Department, University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugal

    Luís Paulo Reis

  3. Education and Psychology Department, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

    Francislê Neri de Souza

  4. Education and Psychology Department, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

    António Moreira

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Silver, C. (2018). CAQDAS at a Crossroads: Choices, Controversies and Challenges. In: Costa, A., Reis, L., Souza, F., Moreira, A. (eds) Computer Supported Qualitative Research. ISQR 2017. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 621. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61121-1_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61121-1_1

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