Using ATLAS.ti for Qualitative Data Analysis

Transcription

1 Using ATLAS.ti for Qualitative Data Analysis This document covers the basic features of ATLAS.ti, one of a new generation of qualitative data analysis software packages. You can use these software packages to analyze interviews, field notes, textual sources, and other types of qualitative data. ATLAS.ti is available on designated computers in the Velma Denning Room in the Bing Wing of Green Library. To use any of the public computers on campus, you must have a SUNet ID (Stanford University Network Identifier). See the following URL for information on obtaining a SUNet ID: Table of Contents Getting started with ATLAS.ti... 2 Working with Hermeneutic Units (HUs)... 3 Creating HUs...3 Saving HUs...3 Opening HUs...3 Working with Qualitative Data Files... 3 Preparing Documents for Import...3 Assigning Primary Documents...4 HU Editor...4 Working with Textual Primary Documents... 5 Creating Quotations...5 Coding Documents...5 Families... 6 Text Search Tool... 6 Auto Coding... 7 Query Tool... 7 To formulate a Boolean query...8 Saving a query using Super Codes...9 Network Editor... 9 To create a network view To create a link between two nodes Export and Import SPSS Export XML Export/Import Working with Graphical and Audio Quotations For More Information and Assistance ATLAS.ti Help ATLAS.ti Computer-based Tutorials ATLAS.ti Online Support Documentation SSDS Software Services at Stanford Stanford University Social Science Data and Software

2 Getting started with ATLAS.ti When you open ATLAS.ti, the welcome wizard appears which offers you four options on beginning a session. You can choose to open an already existing Hermeneutic Unit (HU) an ATLAS.ti project, create a new one, or just continue with the program. These options are described later in the document. You can disable the welcome wizard by checking the Don t display this screen again checkbox. If this is your first time, you may choose to Just Continue with the program. You will then see the ATLAS.ti knowledge workbench. The ATLAS.ti Workbench The summary below describes the basic features of the ATLAS.ti workbench: The Hermeneutic Unit (HU) is your project and the documents, codes, memos, and other files associated with it. The Hermeneutic Unit (HU) Editor is the main workspace area. It is the main editing tool, and it provides access to all the other tools. The main components are: The Main Menu gives you access to the different components of the Hermeneutic Unit: documents, quotations, codes, etc. The Primary Document Pane is the large window in which you view your document. You will mark or code documents from this area. The Main Tool Bar is immediately underneath the Main Menu. If you move your mouse pointer over a button, you will get a short description of the button s function. The Object Drop-Down Lists positioned below the Main Tool Bar are four drop-down lists for the main objects of the HU. These are from left to right, primary documents, quotations, codes, and memos. The drop down lists provides easy access to these objects. 2 - Using ATLAS.ti for Qualitative Data Analysis

3 Working with Hermeneutic Units (HUs) Creating HUs When you begin working with qualitative data in ATLAS.ti, the first step is to create a Hermeneutic Unit (HU) or a project. A HU contains all of your documents, quotations, codes, memos, and associated files that make up your project. To create a new HU, launch ATLAS.ti and choose the Create a new Hermeneutic Unit option from the Welcome Wizard. Enter the name of your HU when prompted. You will then need to save your HU. From the File menu, choose Save and select the location for the file to be saved. Unless you are using ATLAS.ti on your own computer, we recommend that you create the project on a portable data storage device such as a USB flash drive. This allows you to work on your project at any computer instead of being limited to one particular hard drive. Note: If you create your project on a portable data storage device, you should frequently back up your project files onto a hard drive (the hard drive does not necessarily need to have ATLAS.ti installed on it) to prevent accidental data loss. To create your project on a portable data storage device, select the correct letter for the drive under the Save In drop-down menu. If you want to create your project on the hard drive, choose the letter of the hard drive instead and navigate through its folders to arrive at your preferred location for the project. You have now created a new ATLAS.ti project. Saving HUs Under the File menu in the project pad, you can choose Save to save your project in the same location or Save as to save a copy in a new location. Opening HUs When you want to open an existing ATLAS.ti project, you should select Open from the File menu or from the Welcome Wizard, choose the Open Hermeneutic Unit from Picklist option. A list of HUs will appear and you should select the HU you would like to open. When opening an HU, ATLAS.ti looks for its associated documents in the original file folder from which you assigned them (see Assigning Primary Documents below), so make sure you have the original documents available in the same folder with the HU if you need to work on multiple computers. Working with Qualitative Data Files Preparing Documents for Import Once you have opened a new HU, associate your data files or Primary Documents with your HU. The primary documents are the text, graphic, and audio data that make up your raw data. How do you prepare your raw data for qualitative data analysis in ATLAS.ti? The main challenge is to ensure that your data is in text-based, electronic format. If you have recorded interviews, for example, you will need to transcribe them in a word processing application in order to make them textbased. On the other hand, if you are performing a content analysis of paper-based texts such as court records, you may need to use a scanner with optical character recognition (OCR) software to transform the documents to electronic format. Using ATLAS.ti for Qualitative Data Analysis - 3

4 The current version of ATLAS.ti accepts most textual, graphical, and multimedia formats. For a list of formats that are currently supported as primary documents choose Assign from the Documents drop down menu and click the File Type drop-down list that appears at the bottom of the window. ATLAS.ti does not automatically do line wrapping. Therefore, when you save a text document in a Word document, you should put in line breaks. In addition to textual documents, ATLAS.ti also supports graphical and audio data. The program supports about 20 different graphic file formats, including the more common.bmp,.tiff, and.jpeg formats. ATLAS.ti provides limited support for audio files of type WAV. Assigning Primary Documents Once you have created a new HU in ATLAS.ti, you must assign or import the files you plan to analyze. You assign primary documents by choosing Documents/Assign from the Main menu. Select one or more files from the dialog box and click Open. You can select more than one file by holding down the control-key as you click on the files. You can now view all of the documents imported into the project using the Primary Document dropdown list (the leftmost drop-down box in the tool bar above the document pane). Open a document by choosing the document from the drop-down list. The document will open in the HU editor. HU Editor The HU Editor shows the contents of the document you imported. This is the main workspace for coding documents. You will see the margin area with your coded quotations to the right of the HU editor if you have that option activated. To show or hide the margin area, choose Views/Margin Area from the Main menu. The HU Editor with Margin Area 4 - Using ATLAS.ti for Qualitative Data Analysis

5 Working with Textual Primary Documents Creating Quotations One of the most common operations when working on a Primary Document is the marking of segments of that document and assigning codes to them. Quotations in ATLAS.ti are segments of your Primary Documents that you select to note its importance. You may choose to code these segments later on. There are three types of quotations: textual, graphical, and audio. To create a textual quotation, select the text segment in the primary document. Move the cursor into the selected area and right click on the marked region to open the context menu. Most objects in ATLAS.ti (quotations, codes, memos, etc) have a context menu. You can activate the context menu by right clicking on the object. Choose Create Free Quotation from the selected text s context menu. You will notice that your quotation will appear in the quotation drop-down list. Coding Documents Before starting to code your documents, it is useful to switch on the Margin Area, so that you can see the effect of your actions. You can activate the Margin Area by choosing Views/Margin Area from the main menu. One way to code a section of a primary document is to select the segment of the text you want to code, and then select one of four types of coding techniques offered by ATLAS.ti: 1. Open Coding use Open Coding when you want to create a new node and associate it with an existing quotation or text segment. 2. Code-by-List use this option if you want to assign existing codes to a quotation or selection 3. In-Vivo Coding use this option when the selected text itself is a good name for the code 4. Quick Coding use this option if you want to apply the currently selected code to the marked segment. It is a quick way to assign the same code to consecutive text segments. To code a document using Open Coding technique 1. Select the text segment or quotation you want to code 2. Choose Codes/Coding/Open Coding from the main menu 3. Enter a name for your code and click OK. A new code will be added to the code list, and if needed, a new quotation to the quotation list. If you want to assign multiple codes to the selected text, you can do so by separating the codes by the character in the Open Coding window. 1. Select the text segment 2. Choose Codes/Coding/Open Coding from the main menu or from the Context Menu, which is activated by right-clicking on the selection 3. Enter the names of the codes separated by the character. For example, Emotion Anxiety Stress creates three new codes simultaneously and assign all to the selected text. Using ATLAS.ti for Qualitative Data Analysis - 5

6 Families Families are containers or holders for different kinds of objects (documents, codes, memos, etc) that help with organization of your HU objects. As we will see later, families are also useful in querying and other like functions. All procedures for displaying, editing, and creating families are found in the menus of their object types. For example, you may want to classify all primary documents that are interviews with females into one family. To do this, you first create a new document family by choosing Documents/Open Families/ Edit Family Browser. The Family Browser window will open up, and from there you can create a new family, by clicking the New Family Button. Enter the name of your family when prompted, and click OK. To add to the new family select one or more items from the Non-Members list and click the Add Items button. You can add a comment or description by entering it in the comment window at the bottom of the dialog box. You may create code families by going to the Codes menu and following similar steps. Text Search Tool The text search tool allows you to find the occurrence of a specific text within primary documents. ATLAS.ti offers three different text search options: 1. Simple Search allows you to simply enter the text or phrase you want to find; e.g. if you want to search for pain, simply type pain. 2. Category Search allows you to search for multiple patterns simultaneously. You can also use wildcards in this search. A search expression such as pain* angry hurt* will find all text passages including any of the following words. Because of the use of the wildcard, it will also find words like painful, hurtful, etc. You can also save the search expression for later use. 3. GREP Search allows you to do even more complicated searches. For example, you can search for all years between 1990 and For more information on GREP searches, please consult the online help manual. Text Search Tool As an example, to start a simple search, open the text search tool by choosing Search (Ctrl+F) from the Edit menu. Enter the text you want to search for and make sure the Use GREP option is unchecked. Set Case Sensitive option as needed and click Next. 6 - Using ATLAS.ti for Qualitative Data Analysis

7 Auto Coding The auto coding tool in ATLAS.ti allows you to automatically code segments of your text in one or more documents. For example, you can search for all occurrence of the word anxiety and assign them to a code named stress. To start auto coding, choose Codes/Coding/Auto Coding from the Main Menu. The Auto Coding Dialog seen below will appear. Auto Coding Tool Choose the code you want to assign from the Selected Code drop down menu in the Auto Coding Dialog window. Enter or select a search expression. ATLAS.ti can auto code just within the current primary text or groups of primary texts. To auto code the current document you are working on, choose Current PT as the scope of the search. When a match is found, you can decide the actual segment that you would like coded. You can code just the matched string, the word, the sentence or the whole enclosing paragraph. A quotation will be created for the corresponding segment. You can control the auto coding process by selecting Confirm always. When this option is checked, you decide whether to code or skip the matched text by using the Code it and Skip it buttons. Query Tool The Query Tool allows you to search your data and retrieve coded texts, graphics, or audio segments that match your specified criteria. You have already learned about the text searching capabilities in the Auto coding section of this document. The Query Tool is different because you search for texts using the codes that were defined during the coding process. To activate the Query tool, choose the Codes/Output/Query Tool from the HU editor s Main menu or just click on the Query tool button in the main tool bar. Using ATLAS.ti for Qualitative Data Analysis - 7

8 Query Tool The Query Tool is a multi-pane window that has the following main parts: Operation Tool bar buttons (operators) located near the left margin of the window. Code Family Pane (Families) located in upper left of the window lists code families to be used in queries. Code Pane (Codes) located below the code family pane lists all codes currently in the HU. Query Pane (Query) located in the upper right displays all expressions entered in the current query. This pane is split in two by a red line with the second pane showing the current query in a different format. Result Pane (Result) located in the lower right of the window. To formulate a Boolean query One way to formulate a query is to use codes or code families (operands) combined with Boolean operators. The simplest query is the one in which you have no operators and just select a code or code family by double-clicking on it. The Result Pane will immediately display all quotations that have that code assigned to it. To formulate a query that says give me all quotations (text, graphic, or audio segments) coded with both supervision and teaching, you would first double click on code supervision. The result pane immediately shows all segments coded with supervision. Then double-click on teaching and the result pane will display segments coded with teaching. Click operator AND (the button on the left margin) to apply this operator to the two operands and the Result Pane will now display only those segments that have been coded with both teaching and supervision. 8 - Using ATLAS.ti for Qualitative Data Analysis

9 Saving a query using Super Codes You can store result of your queries using Super Codes. To create a super code to store the result of your query, click on the Super-Code button in the Query Tool window. Enter a name for the Super Code and hit return. The new Super Code appears in the list of codes and can be used to create new queries. Note that Super Codes cannot be associated with quotations directly. Network Editor Networks are used to build theoretical models within ATLAS.ti. The network is defined by a set of nodes and links. Nodes in ATLAS.ti can be any number of objects - codes, quotations, memos or primary texts. You can also define named links, which allow you to specify the relationship between nodes. For example, with a named link you can define a causal relationship between two nodes, N1 causes N2, by connecting the two nodes with the named link causes or is cause of. The network editor, shown below, allows you to create and manipulate your network structures. You can use it to organize your codes, catalog ideas, and build a conceptual or logical relationship between nodes. Network Editor Using ATLAS.ti for Qualitative Data Analysis - 9

10 To create a network view Select Network/New Network View from the HU Editor s Main Menu. Enter a name for the new network view. You can import nodes into your network view by choosing Nodes/Import Nodes from the network editor s menu bar. Choose the type of Node you want to include in the network. Select the relevant nodes and click the Import button. After importing, the nodes will be in the upper left corner of the network editor. You can then create links between nodes. To create a link between two nodes Move the mouse to the first node. Hold down the shift key. Hold down the left mouse button and move it to the second node just as if you wanted to move the node. A rubber band tracks the movement of the mouse. When you get to the second node, release the shift key and the mouse button. A selection of relations pops up and you can choose the is cause of relation. Save the network by selecting Save from the Network editor s Network menu. Export and Import ATLAS.ti provides export and import functions to allow you to analyze your data using other software. SPSS Export The SPSS export function treats codes as variables and quotations as the cases. Each case or quotation is defined by the primary document, the codes that are assigned to it, and its position. To export to SPSS, select Extras/Export to/spss Job from the Main Menu. You can decide where you want to send your output select File. Select where you want to save the SPSS syntax file that was created. Open the SPSS syntax file by double-clicking on it from the directory that you saved it. From SPSS Main Menu, choose Run/All. XML Export/Import Codes, memos, or entire HUs can be exported into the XML format. Exporting codes and memos as XML files allows you to transfer all or only selected codes or memos between HUs using the import function. To export/import codes and memos as XML files, select the Miscellaneous from the Codes menu and select the appropriate function. To export selected codes, open Code Manager from the Codes menu and select Export Selected Codes (XML) from the Code Manager s Miscellaneous menu. Working with Graphical and Audio Quotations In addition to textual documents, ATLAS.ti allows you to work with more than twenty graphic file formats. ATLAS.ti supports several common audio and video formats (like WAV, MP3, WMA, SND, AVI, MPG, WMV, MOV, etc.). You can work with graphic files in similar ways as you do text documents. See the Help Manual for detailed instructions on working with graphical files Using ATLAS.ti for Qualitative Data Analysis

11 For More Information and Assistance This section of the guide directs you to useful resources for learning ATLAS.ti and resolving any questions or problems that could arise as you become familiar with the software. ATLAS.ti Help To access the ATLAS.ti Help system, go to the Help menu and select Contents. You can also download an ATLAS.ti manual (short or full version) from ATLAS.ti website ( ATLAS.ti Computer-based Tutorials The ATLAS.ti CD comes with a computer-based tutorial, which can be made available to you upon request. You can also download a demo copy of the software (with tutorial) from the ATLAS.ti website ( ATLAS.ti Online Support ATLAS.ti offers suppor to its users in a number of ways. The support center ( allows you to browse their knowledge base and open and trace a help ticket on a specific problem you have. You may also use their online forum ( to ask questions to other users or search for solutions. Documentation Social Sciences Data and Software (SSDS) has a reference library of textbooks and software manuals about qualitative and statistical analysis, located in the Velma Denning Room on the first floor of the Green Library Bing Wing. The SSDS collection does not circulate, but check the online catalog Socrates for copies in other locations. SSDS Software Services at Stanford Software Services provides technical support for ATLAS.ti users at Stanford. Users can ask questions or make appointments with the consultants via our website. For more information or to contact us, see the web at: Note: This document is based on ATLAS.ti for Windows XP. Copyright 2010 by The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Permission granted to copy for noncommercial purposes, provided we receive acknowledgment and a copy of the document in which our material appears. No right is granted to quote from or use any material in this document for purposes of promoting any product or service. Social Science Data and Software Document revised: 8/31/2011 Using ATLAS.ti for Qualitative Data Analysis - 11