hi all, just share a thought on the topic of qualitative analysis and grounded theory. i think the emerging use of CAQDAS has been evident as a subfield of expertise, are now widespread and is a fast-growing field. to a full review of literatures and existing software has already been done since long time ago (e.g. Burgess, 1995; Tesch, 1990; Weaver and Atkinson, 1994; Weitzman and Miles, 1994). to me, it is important however, to note that computer-based approaches of this sort depend on procedures for coding the text (interview transcripts, field notes, transcribed recordings, documents) which means marking the text in order to tag particular segments of the text. codes are thus attached to discrete stretches of data. by doing this, the purpose is twofold. first, it facilitates the attachment of these codes to the data. second, it allows the researcher to retrieve all instances in the data that share a code. in addition, CAQDAS also allow user to do things like attaching analytic or other memos to specific points in the text. the aim of this is to incorporate many of the key tasks of 'grounded theory' within the software applications. there is, therefore, a close relationship between the processes of coding and the use of CAQDAS, which needs warning. although it has been sometime ago, i found Lonkila's note (1995) useful on this issue. she has summarised key features of two CAQDAS programs, i.e. ATLAS/ti and NUD*IST: "It seems clear that the development of the two programs mentioned has been strongly influenced by grounded theory. But it does not follow from this that they can only be (or actually are) used in an analysis in line with grounded methodology. However, nearly all of the programs developed specifically for qualitative data analysis tell us: if you want to do qualitative research with the computer, you have to code your data. How you do it, is basically up to you (even if some of the programs and many of the articles written on computer-assisted qualitative data analysis suggest that the researcher get acquainted with grounded theory). It may be that at least some kind of coding is needed in most qualitative research, but it is also possible that coding is overemphasized, given the fact that a large part of the qualitative researcher's work consists of interpretation and a fine-grained hermeneutic analysis." (Lonkila, 1995: 48-49) it is suggested that aspects of grounded theory have been over-emphasized in the development and use of qualitative data analysis software, while other approaches have been neglected in comparison. therefore, there is a danger that researchers may be led implicitly towards the uncritical adoption of a particular set of strategies as a consequence of adopting computer-aided analysis. CAQDAS offers a variety of useful ways of organizing data in order to search them, but coding data using software is not analysis. btw, i am now using Atlas.ti as it handles multimedia data (audio, video) nicely. i can mark particular segments in the audio/video recording, etc. and continue with my analysis best, yanuar related references: Burgess, R. G. (1995), 'Computing and Qualitative Research', Studies in Qualitative Methodology No. 5, Greenwich CT: JAI Press Lonkila, M. (1995) 'Grounded theory as an emerging paradigm for computer-assisted qualitative data analysis', in U. Kelle (eds) Computer-Aided Qualitative Data Analysis, London: Sage Tesch, R. (1990) Qualitative Research: Analysis Types and Software Tools. London: Falmer Weaver, A. and P. Atkinson (1994) Microcomputing and Qualitative Data Analysis. Aldershot, Hants: Avebury Weitzman, E. A. and M. B. Miles (1994) Computer Programs for Qualitative Analysis. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage ---------------------------------- Yanuar Nugroho http://myprofile.cos.com/yanuar-n Research Assistant & PhD Researcher PREST - Institute of Innovation Research The University of Manchester