Researchware, Inc.

A frequent form of qualitative analysis is the analysis of question and answer style conversations. This guide illustrates an approach to coding and analyzing such interviews within HyperRESEARCH. Below is a simplified example of a basic conversational interview.

This example displays a code for each question, such as "Question 01 - Did you have pets as a child?" and "Question 02 - Do you currently have pets?".

IMPORTANT TIP: HyperRESEARCH sorts codes alphabetically. By adding a leading zero, as you see in the above example, I ensure that my questions will appear listed in order (assuming I have fewer than 99, otherwise I would need 2 leading zeros)]. I have used my questions codes to code the entire chunk of text containing the question and the subject's answer.

It is important that I cover the answer with one code representing the question, and other codes representing portions of the subject's answer that are relevant to my study (in this case the codes "Dogs" and "Cats").

I will then use a filter feature in HyperRESEARCH called "Overlaps" to filter, for example, just those responses where a subject spoke about "Dogs" in response to Question 01. To use the Overlaps functions effectively, I will code the subject's entire answer to the question with a code representing the question and then portions of their answer with other codes related to my study.

I can now select Filter Codes > By Criteria from the Study Window.

Under the "Build Criteria" menu, I can select "Function..." and then the "Overlaps" function. This will prompt me to pick to code name that I want to test as being overlapping. I then select my Question 01 code, followed by the code "Dogs" (shown below) to find all those response where the person talked about "Dogs" only in response to Question 01.

Clicking "Select" then filters my code response to just those where a subject spoke about "Dogs" in response to Question 01. This is reflected on both the code shown in the Study Window and in the Code in Context sidebar of the Source (see below).

Using the Report Builder or Frequency Report I can:

• show all my codes by resetting the Code filter to All.
• use the Overlaps function in Case filters to limits my cases to just respondents who spoke about Dogs in Question 01, and
• create more complex criteria as well.

Please see the HyperRESEARCH user guide or online help for more information on Case and Code filters and filter functions.