NUD*IST is a helpful software, I've heard. In all my years doing
qualitative research, though, I've always just gone with the old system --
doing clustering and identifying themes et al by spreading it all out on
the living room floor, or taping it all up on some walls. Crude, but
effective.
The selection of a system and means of coding depends, of course, on what
you want to end up with. To get a nice sense of what could be done,
Brock, you might want to thumb through the Handbook of Qualitative
Research (will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about qual.
research and analysis, maybe!). From there, you can read more in-depth of
the processes that seem most likely to meet your needs. Regardless of the
system, be prepared for some extremely labor-intensive, rigorous work, but
the rich findings and conclusions will be well worth it.
Since validity or reliability are not a concern/objective of qualitative
analysis, establishing trustworthiness will be critical; create a sound
audit trail for yourself. I'd be happy to share some of my own
experiences and lessons-learned, if you are interested.
--Terri A Deems, PhD tadeems@aol.com
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>