Introduction to NVivo

NVivo is an example of CAQDAS (Computer assisted qualitative data analysis software) and is a development of the well-known program NUD*IST.

Although CAQDAS does not do the analysis for you, it does support the organised and consistent management of data analysis, with tools to assist the thematic investigation of texts. NVivo mainly focuses on texts (preferably transcribed into word processed files), but the analysis can be linked to digitized pictures, movies and websites.

NVivo makes full use of the Windows interface and is very flexible and supports coding text of any size down to a single character.

It gives fast access to the original text so that analyses are well grounded.

There is good support for the hierarchical coding of text to undertake thematic analyses of the kind found in Template Analysis, Phenomenology, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, and Grounded Theory. But is can also be used for other forms of analysis such as case based and narrative approaches.

Other key functions are support for memos, attributes (variable-like approach), searching (for text, codes or attributes in various combinations) and diagrams (models).