Research Methodology
USING NVIVO FOR YOUR LITERATURE REVIEW
Silvana di Gregorio, PhD SdG Associates, London and Boston
Paper presented at STRATEGIES IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH: ISSUES AND RESULTS FROM ANALYSIS USING QSR NVIVO AND NUD*IST, conference at the Institute of Education, London - 29-30 September 2000
1 © 2000 Dr. Silvana di Gregorio - www.sdgassociates.com
Introduction Literature reviews are a common feature of all dissertations, regardless of discipline or subject matter. They feature as a basis for all other kinds of research or learned work. However, they are usually overlooked as a form of qualitative analysis. Yet the processes involved in building an argument from a body of literature are similar to processes involved in analysing qualitative data. The processes involved include: reading and reflecting; interacting with the literature/data and commenting on it; identifying key themes and coding for them; extracting from the codes 'gold dust ' quotes to be used when writing up; linking similar ideas from different articles/ transcripts; identifying contradictions in arguments; comparing dissimilarities in articles/transcripts; building one 's own argument/analysis with links to supporting evidence in the data/literature. Researchers have developed various strategies to deal with the amount of material a literature review generates. In the past, card index systems were used as tools but in the past few years, bibliographical software has emerged as the favoured tool to organise literature. Packages such as EndNote, Reference Manager, ProCite etc. have excellent tools to manage references. It is possible to download abstracts and, in some, whole articles to be included in the bibliographic database. They offer flexible ways to search and sort references. They have direct links with word-processing packages, making it easy to insert the correct citation at a point in the text. They also have the ability to generate bibliographies in the house styles appropriate to
Silvana di Gregorio, PhD SdG Associates, London and Boston
Paper presented at STRATEGIES IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH: ISSUES AND RESULTS FROM ANALYSIS USING QSR NVIVO AND NUD*IST, conference at the Institute of Education, London - 29-30 September 2000
1 © 2000 Dr. Silvana di Gregorio - www.sdgassociates.com
Introduction Literature reviews are a common feature of all dissertations, regardless of discipline or subject matter. They feature as a basis for all other kinds of research or learned work. However, they are usually overlooked as a form of qualitative analysis. Yet the processes involved in building an argument from a body of literature are similar to processes involved in analysing qualitative data. The processes involved include: reading and reflecting; interacting with the literature/data and commenting on it; identifying key themes and coding for them; extracting from the codes 'gold dust ' quotes to be used when writing up; linking similar ideas from different articles/ transcripts; identifying contradictions in arguments; comparing dissimilarities in articles/transcripts; building one 's own argument/analysis with links to supporting evidence in the data/literature. Researchers have developed various strategies to deal with the amount of material a literature review generates. In the past, card index systems were used as tools but in the past few years, bibliographical software has emerged as the favoured tool to organise literature. Packages such as EndNote, Reference Manager, ProCite etc. have excellent tools to manage references. It is possible to download abstracts and, in some, whole articles to be included in the bibliographic database. They offer flexible ways to search and sort references. They have direct links with word-processing packages, making it easy to insert the correct citation at a point in the text. They also have the ability to generate bibliographies in the house styles appropriate to
Links: as you would direct quotations. You can create any number of thematic memos where you can explore in detail any theme. You can copy and paste citations directly from your bibliographic software into an NVIVO document. By using such a software tool for your literature review, you are creating a literature archive, which you will be able to dip into and add to for future reference and research. For those who are doing a qualitative piece of research, this is a good way to start to learn how to use NVIVO before you have collected your data. For those who are doing quantitative research, you may be surprised to learn that you have been doing a form of qualitative research when doing a literature review and that NVIVO is a tool that can help. 12 © 2000 Dr. Silvana di Gregorio - www.sdgassociates.com