maxqda - distinguishing features final · the structure of work in maxqda 2007 maxqda 2007...

SoftwareReviews:MAXqda2007

CAQDASNetworkingProject©ChristinaSilver&AnnLewins QUICWorkingPaper#003June2009

MAXqda2007(includingMAXdictio,MAXMaps&GEOlinks)DistinguishingfeaturesandfunctionsThis document is intended to be read in conjunctionwith the ‘Choosing a CAQDAS PackageWorking Paper’whichprovidesamoregeneralcommentaryofcommonCAQDASfunctionality.ThisdocumentdoesnotprovideanexhaustiveaccountofallthefeaturesandfunctionsprovidedbyMAXqda2007but isdesignedtohighlightsomeofitsdistinguishingelements.TheCommentsectionattheenddetailsouropinionsoncertainaspectsoffunctionality andusability. Seealso Lewins&Silver (2007)UsingSoftware inQualitativeResearch:A Step‐by‐StepGuide,SagePublicationsandsoftwaredeveloperwebsite.Background http://www.maxqda.com MAXqda 2007 is the latest in a software stream originally developed by Udo Kuckartz in order to managepoliticaldiscoursedataontheenvironment■Itsapplicationhassincewidenedtomultipleacademicdisciplinesand applied research areas■ Its focus is on textual analysis, although non‐textual objects can be embeddedwithin text files■ Theoptional add‐onmoduleMAXDictio (extra cost) extends functionality toprovidebasiccontentanalysisstylelexicalindexingwithKeyWordinContext(KWIC).MinimumSystemSpecifications(recommendedbydeveloper)MSWindows98orhigher■RAM:64MB(minimum)TheStructureofworkinMAXqda2007 MAXqda 2007 functions using an internal database system. Texts are contained within the Project, and aremovedorsavedaspartoftheproject.■Theuser interfacecomprises4windows.TheDocumentSystemlistsproject texts.TheCodeSystemhouses thecodingschema.TheTextBrowserdisplays individual textsandtheRetrievedSegmentsWindowdisplayscodeddata.■Windowscanberesized,openedandclosedasrequired.Figure1.MAXqda2007InterfaceshowingDocumentSystemandColourCoding

DocumentSystemCodeSystem

ColourCoding



DatatypesandformatinMAXqda2007 Textualformats:RichTextFormat(RTF)only.■Objectssuchasgraphics,tables,andPowerPointslidescanbeembeddedintoRTFfilesandhyperlinkscanbecreatedfromtextstoexternallyheldfiles.■Textscanbeeasilyeditedwithin the software but are safeguarded from accidental changes by read‐only properties■ Text linewrapsandparagraphsareautomaticallynumberedClosenesstodataandinteractivityMAXqda2007 Windowscontainingdifferentelementsofworkcanbedisplayedandworkedwithsimultaneously.■ Fullandseamless interactivity acrossdifferent aspectsofwork (often justone click).■ All tablesdisplaying frequencyinformation are fully interactive and easily exported■ KeyWord in Context (KWIC)word searches are easilyexecutableandflexible.■Basicandcomplexretrievalofcodeddataisviewedinitssourcecontextatthesametime as being lifted out of context providing a good balance■ Themargin display shows codes,memos andGEOLinks,isfullyinteractiveandprintswell.Itcanbefilteredinvariousrespects,includingbyactivation,userorcolourattribute.CodingschemainMAXqda2007 The coding schema can be as hierarchical or as un‐hierarchical as required.■ Drag and drop allows easy re‐organisation of codes across andwithin hierarchies and into sets.■ Assign colour to codeswhich appears inmargindisplayandinthecodesystem■Codesonviewcanbefilteredaccordingtochosencolour/s.■Codescanadditionallybere‐organizedintosetswhichactasshort‐cutgroupingsCodingProcessesinMAXqda2007 Draganddropselectedtextontoacode.■Assignrecentlyusedcodesfromdrop‐downmenu.■Undorecentcodingactions.■ApplyWeighttocodedsegmentswithinarangeof1to100toindicatehowstronganexampleasegmentofdataisofcorrespondingcode.■Convertcodefrequenciesintonumericattributes.■Usualauto‐codingdevicesbasedontextsearches–optionstocodesurroundingsentenceorparagraphifadditionalcontextrequired. Automatic coding of text based on requested auto‐indexing of selected words after using wordfrequencytoolsinMAXdictio(add‐on,extracost)BasicRetrievalofcodeddatainMAXqda2007 Activation is the central retrieval principle used by MAXqda which is easy to understand and to execute.Combinations of codes and texts are ‘turned on’ displaying relevant segments in the Retrieved Segmentswindow.■ Texts canbeactivated in variousways, includingby setor (combinationsof) attribute, byweight,hierarchicalpositioninthecodingschemaoraccordingtocolourcodeattribute.■Functionalhierarchiesallowquickretrievalofdatacodedatatoplevelandallitssub‐codestogether.■CentralizedIndexofCodedSegmentsprovidesa tabular interactive listingofcodeddataacross thewholedataset,or forcombinationsofactivatedtextsandcodes.DataOrganisationinMAXqda2007 Descriptiveorganizationaccordingtoknowncharacteristics isenabledbyapplyingattributestowholetextsorsocio‐demographic codes to segments of data where several respondents occur within one text, such as infocus‐groupdata■ Sets of documents provide shortcuts to groupsof texts.■ Texts can alsobe given colourattributesforvisualdifferentiation.WritingToolsinMAXqda2007 TheMAXqdamemo system offers options not provided by other software. Memos can be attached to textsegments,codesandtextsandaredisplayedwithuserdefinedstylesofpost‐itnoteicons.■Individualmemoscan be linked to any number of relevant codes and can be grouped into types ■ Memos can be retrievedaccording to several different criteria e.g. all memos linked to a particular code, all memo’s within onedocument, allmemos for a Setof documents, allmemo’s for a text group.■Outputmemosbasedon thesecriteriaintoonefile.



SearchingandinterrogatingthedatasetinMAXqda2007 Interrogate by simple or complex states of activation. ■ Activation by weight adds an extra dimension tosearching.■ InteractiveMatrix Browsers allow tabular visualization of code co‐occurrences and frequency ofcodes occurring in (groups of) documents. Matrices are interactively connected to source data. ■ Codefrequencytableshowsfrequencyofcodesacrosswholedatasetoramongstactivatedtextsandcodes.■TextsearchingprovidesKeyWordinContext(KWIC)retrieval.■UsualrangeofBooleanandproximityoperatorsforretrievingcodedtext■ Combinetextsearchingwithcodeddata.LinkingdevicesinMAXqda2007 Pairsoftextpassagescanbelinkedtogether.■Externallinkstowebsites.■Linkmemostooneanotherinmap(visuallinkonly)■Linkmemostocodes(functionallink)toenableretrievalofwritingaccordingly.VisualtoolsinMAXqda2007 Unique to MaxQDA are three devices using interactive colour blocks based on the use of colour attributesassigned to codes tovisualize codesdistribution inprojectdata.■ TextPortraitprovidesavisualoverviewofhowanindividualtexthasbeencoded■TextComparisonChartcomparescodingacrossactivatedtexts.■TheCodelineprovidesan interactivevisualmapbyparagraphshowinghowan individual texthasbeencoded. Asingleclickinanycolourblockwithinallthreetoolsprovidesin‐contextretrieval.■GEOLinksenablesanyGoogleEarthTMlocationtobelinkedtoanytextsegmentorcodewithinMAXqdaorinsertedintoaMAXmap.DirectlinkfromwithinMAXqdatoGoogleEarthTM■MAXMapsisamappingtoolwhichenablesthegraphicvisualizationofall aspects of the project and to embed items not existent in the project – such as photographs etc. FullintegrationbetweenobjectsinamapandtherestoftheprojectandgoodexportoptionsFigure2.SomeofMAXqda’srangeofVisualTools

TextPortrait,CodelineandTextComparisonviews

CreateaGEOLinkfromapointinatexttoaGoogleEarthlocation.Linksarevisibleinbothapplications



OutputinMAXqda2007 Outputcombinationsofmemosintoonefile(allmemos,allmemoslinkedtoonedatafileorasetoffiles,orallmemoslinkedtoonecode).■Anyinteractivetableproducedinsidethesoftwarecanbeexportedtoviewinaspreadsheet application■ Exporting inHTML format : exportmemos, attributes and coded text segments inHTMLformattodisplayinawebbrowser.■Printtextsincludingmarginview.ContentanalysisfeaturesinMAXqda2007 MAXdictio (add on module) allows word frequency across (groups of) texts providing a tabular index withinteractiveKeyWordInContext(KWIC)retrieval.■Createdictionarytobuildlistofactivewords.Usedictionarytogovernfunctioningofothertools.Useindexingoptionstoauto‐codeselectedwordsandsurroundingcontext.TeamworkinginMAXqda2007 Mergepartsofprojectse.g.codingforindividualdocuments,oratextgroup,orawholeproject’sdatabasecanbeimportedintoanother.■Colourcodingmayindicatedifferentresearcherswork,enablingvisualcomparison.■Htmloutputoptionsaswellastabularandtextfilesenableflexiblesharinginformation.■MAXqdaReaderisafreeproductenabling thosewithoutaMAXqda license toviewprojectdata.Useful indiverse teamsituationswheremanyresearchersareinvolvedwithouttheneedforeveryonetobeversedintheuseofsoftware.

CommentonMAXqda2007TheMAXqda2007userinterfaceiscompact,appealingandtidy.Tables,visualtoolsandmemosprovidesuperbinteractive contact with different aspects of work keeping the user close to source data at all times. Autoarrangingbutresizablewindowsalloweasycustomizationandisolationofelement(s)ofwork.Theuserinterfacecouldberathercrampedwithlargerdatasets.MAXqda2007isintuitive,simpleandefficient. It iseasytolearnandtobeginworkingeffectivelywithouttheneedforextensivetraining.It includessomesimpleyetappealingfeatureswhichusersoftenrequest, includingtheabilitytocolourcodesandprintoffthemargindisplayeasilyandsatisfactorily.MAXqda2007makesgooduseofcolourtovisuallydifferentiatevariousaspectsofyourwork.ColourisaverypowerfulmeansoforganisationandMAXqda2007providesseveraluniqueusesofcolour.Theseareseeminglysimpledevices,butvaluedhighlybyusersandwhenusedsystematicallycanbepowerfulretrievalandfilteringdevices.MAXqda2007hasexcellentmemotools.Easy,visualsystematicmemoretrievaloptionsareparticularlyusefulfor team situations.MAXqda 2007 has one of the bestmemo retrieval systems. The varied nature of memoretrievalmeansitislessimportanttobesystematicthaninothersoftwarepackages.The principle of activation allows quick and uncomplicated retrieval without recourse to the search tool.Interrogationofthedatasetinthiswayiseasytograspandmanipulate.AutomaticallygeneratedCodeRelationsandCodeMatrixbrowsersprovideeasyclickingtogetco‐occurrenceswhicharecomplicatedtogenerateinotherleadingsoftware.Qual‐quant integration is highly developed in MAXqda since it is one of only two packages from whichqualitative data in tables (e.g. the text of the open ended questions in Excel) can be imported more or lessdirectlyfromspreadsheetapplications.Theautomaticconversionofcodefrequenciesintoattributes(appliedtodocuments)forchosencoding,potentiallyenablesfurthermanipulationwhenexportedforquantitativeanalysis.Anotheruniquetool is theability toeasilyassignweight tocodedsegments though likequalitativecodingtheway theusermightmake these judgmentswill be subjective.Qual‐quant integration is also reinforcedby the



ability toeasilyactivate responsesordocumentson thebasisof combinationsofattributevaluesandconvertinstantlytoSets.SetsofdocumentsandcodesinMAXqda2007areveryusefulasistheabilitytosavecombinationsofstatesofactivations, turningwhatmight be complexmultiple stepquery operations in other packages into simpleandintuitiveprocessesinMAXqda.Intheteamsituationuserscanbeselectiveaboutwhichitemstheymergetogethertherebyallowingcumulativecomparisonofwork.TheMAXqdaReaderisalsoausefulwaytoinvolveteammemberswhoarenotusingthesoftwaredirectly.Visualisation tools (using colour attributes for codes) are unusual and easy to operate, with several optionsuniquetoMAXqda2007.Thethreevisualtoolsusingcolourblockstochartcodesindatamighthaveparticularutilityforresearchwhichistrackingprocessortheflowofthoughtinunstructurednarratives.Suchtoolsdependontheresearcherdeliberatelyassigningcolourstocodesinalogicalwaywithaviewtousingthesevisualisationtools subsequently.MAXqdawas the first CAQDAS package to incorporate the ability to link to geographicalreferencepointsinmappingtools(e.g.GoogleEarthTM)usingGEOlinks.MAXmapsisausefultoolallowingtheusertocreatelayersandgraphicallyenhancethemapinvariousways.Onthewholehowevertheuseofthemapisalittlestiltedsincetherearethreemodesinwhichyoucanoperateandyoukeepfindingyourselfinthewrongmode.WiththeadditionofMaxdictiothesoftwarehasasmallbutusefulrangeofcontentanalysistoolsnotcurrentlyavailable in most other code based packages (apart from QDA Miner). They provide interactive (KWIC)connectionstothesourcecontext.FurtherReading

• Lewins&Silver(2007)UsingSoftwareinQualitativeResearch:AStep‐by‐StepGuide,SagePublications(usesaMAXqdaprojectasworkedexample)

• Lewins,A.(2008)'CAQDAS:ComputerAssistedQualitativeDataAnalysis'in(ed)N.Gilbert,ResearchingSocialLife(3rded),Sage,London

• Silver,C.,&Fielding,N.(2008)'UsingComputerPackagesinQualitativeResearch',inWilligC&Stainton‐RogersW(eds.)TheSageHandbookofQualitativeResearch inPsychology, London,SagePublication(usesaMAXqdaprojectasworkedexample)

• CorbinJ&StraussA(2007)BasicsofQualitativeResearch:TechniquesandProceduresforDevelopingGroundedTheory‐3rdEdition,SagePublications,London(usesaMAXqdaprojectasworkedexample)

• Gibbs, G. (2007)Analysing Qualitative Data, part of the Qualitative Research Kit, ed. U. Flick, Sage,London

• di Gregorio, S & Davidson J (2008) Qualitative Research for Software Users, McGraw Hill, OpenUniversityPress,UK(usesaMAXqdaprojectasworkedexample)

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