CAQDAS teaching in the UK

This presentation reports the results of two online surveys: one in 2011 on teachers of qualitative research and the second in 2013 of those teaching computer assisted qualitative data analysis (CAQDAS) in the UK. Results show that qualitative research methods teaching is buoyant and popular and that teaching about the CAQDAS software is common at postgraduate level. However, CAQDAS is taught much more rarely at undergraduate level. This is in direct contrast with the situation for statistics software such as SPSS. Statistical analysis using software is commonly taught at undergraduate level across a very wide range of social science disciplines. The surveys identified the range and diversity of qualitative methods taught in universities but, in the UK at least, the dominance of one program in the use of CAQDAS. The data also reveal the reasons respondents gave for the lack of undergraduate teaching of CAQDAS which included lack of staff skills, insufficient space in the curriculum and ideological objections. The paper will conclude by examining a small number of case studies of the teaching of CAQDAS to identify the practical and pedagogic challenges faced by the teachers involved