Grounded theory is a systematic methodology that has been largely applied to qualitative research conducted by social scientists. The methodology involves the construction of hypotheses and theories through the collecting and analysis of data. Grounded theory involves the application of inductive reasoning. The methodology contrasts with the hypothetico-deductive model used in traditional scientific research.
Axial coding is the breaking down of core themes during qualitative data analysis.
NVivo is a qualitative data analysis (QDA) computer software package, formerly developed and marketed by QSR International, which is now part of Lumivero. NVivo is used in the social sciences, such as anthropology, psychology, communication, sociology and human geography, as well as fields such as forensics, tourism, criminology and marketing.
Transana is a software package used to analyze digital video or audio data. Transana used to be a GPL licensed software, but has become proprietary software in recent releases.
RQDA is an R package for computer-assisted qualitative data analysis or CAQDAS, making it one of the few open source tools to assist qualitative coding of textual data. Note that there are also other popular but mostly proprietary CAQDAS tools such as NVivo and Atlas.ti but these software come at a cost. RQDA was developed by Huang Ronggui during his PhD study at the City University of Hong Kong, which he still maintains until today.
Computer-assistedqualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) offers tools that assist with qualitative research such as transcription analysis, coding and text interpretation, recursive abstraction, content analysis, discourse analysis, grounded theory methodology, etc.
CAT or Coding Analysis Toolkit was a web-based suite of CAQDAS tools. It is free and open source software, and is developed by the Qualitative Data Analysis Program of the University of Pittsburgh. According to the CAT website, the tool was decommissioned on September 13, 2020.
MAXQDA is a software program designed for computer-assisted qualitative and mixed methods data, text and multimedia analysis in academic, scientific, and business institutions. It is being developed and distributed by VERBI Software based in Berlin, Germany.
The Center for Qualitative Psychology was founded in October 1999 in the department of educational psychology at the University of Tübingen to promote qualitative research methods in psychology. The centre is also committed to supporting qualitative methods for social research in education, sociology, philosophy, medicine, ethnography, politics, etc.
The German Informatics Society (GI) is a German professional society for computer science, with around 20,000 personal and 250 corporate members. It is the biggest organized representation of its kind in the German-speaking world.
Dorothea Wagner is a German computer scientist, known for her research in graph drawing, route planning, and social network analysis. She heads the Institute of Theoretical Informatics at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.
Hubert Knoblauch is a German sociologist. He is known for his work on Sociology of knowledge, Sociology of Religion, Qualitative research and Videography.
RIOT is a small operating system for networked, memory-constrained systems with a focus on low-power wireless Internet of things (IoT) devices. It is open-source software, released under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
Carolyn Ellis is an American communication scholar known for her research of autoethnography, a reflexive approach to research, writing, and storytelling that connects the autobiographical and personal to the cultural, social, and political. Her research centers on how individuals negotiate identities, emotions, and meaning making in and through close relationships.
Cassandre is a free open source software for computer assisted qualitative data analysis and interpretation in humanities and social sciences. Although it refers, like other CAQDAS-software, to Grounded Theory Method, it also allows to conduct discourse analysis or quantitative content analysis. The software is designed as a server to support collaborative work. Formerly focused on semi-automatic coding, it now provides diaries assisting qualitative analysis.
Michael Roth was a German engineer and professor of automation, specializing in microprocessor technology, computer science and sociology as well as philosophy of science. He was one of the pioneers in the area of computer engineering in Germany.
Biographical research is a qualitative research approach aligned to the social interpretive paradigm of research. Biographical research is concerned with the reconstruction of life histories and the constitution of meaning based on biographical narratives and documents. The material for analysis consists of interview protocols (memorandums), video recordings, photographs, and a diversity of sources. These documents are evaluated and interpreted according to specific rules and criteria. The starting point for this approach is the understanding of an individual biography in terms of its social constitution. The biographical approach was influenced by the symbolic interactionism, the phenomenological sociology of knowledge, and ethnomethodology. Therefore, biography is understood in terms of a social construct and the reconstruction of biographies can give insight on social processes and figurations, thus helping to bridge the gap between micro-, meso-, and macro- levels of analysis. The biographical approach is particularly important in German sociology. This approach is used in the Social Sciences as well as in Pedagogy and other disciplines. The Research Committee 38 "Biography and Society" of the International Sociological Association (ISA) was created in 1984 and is dedicated "to help develop a better understanding of the relations between individual lives, the social structures and historical processes within which they take shape and which they contribute to shape, and the individual accounts of biographical experience ".
Marilyn Gray Richards is an Australian social scientist and writer who, with computer scientist Tom Richards, developed the software analysis packages NUD*IST and NVivo.
Qualitative research in criminology consists of research in the criminology field that employs qualitative methods. There are many applications of this research, and they can often intersect with quantitative research in criminology in order to create mixed method studies.
Eric Bodden is a German computer scientist. He holds the Chair of Secure Software Engineering at the Heinz Nixdorf Institute of the Paderborn University and is Director of Software Engineering and IT Security at the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechatronic Design (IEM). He is also head of the engineering department in the Collaborative Research Centre 1119 CROSSING at the Technical University of Darmstadt.
