How does the operation of PHARMAC's 'Community Exceptional ...

Researchers (Davidson & Jacobs, 2008) of the implications of using qualitative
research software for doctoral work have commented that the quality of the
work done with NVivo type programmes is improved with the use of a research
diary. Consequently, I kept a methodological research diary of all my activities
using NVivo 8. These entries were thoughts, happenings, a record of
difficulties, mistakes which were found and a log of how they were corrected.
Phase Three
The third phase involved collating the developed coded data sets into
categories. The ‘search and find’ functions on the computer programmes most
helpfully allowed a search for commonly occurring words and groups of words.
These words and groups of words became the building blocks for the
categories.
The tree and free nodes were all printed and read many times. I developed
‘collections’ of nodes which naturally joined themselves together. In my diary, I
noted down four collections or subject areas which began to emerge.
I then ran Text Search Queries (TSQ) of each tree and free node using the
NVivo 8 programme to search the data for the commonly occurring key words
(Lavery, 2009a). TSQ provides a check that these words were the most
commonly used words taken down from the nodes and provides a link back to
the source of the data. This allowed me to revisit the text and check the context
of the words. After several runs of TSQ to test the data, NVivo 8 gave me an
embedded description of the text by allowing me to see the most commonly
occurring words and groups of words.
I then took the TSQ and searches began to construct the categories. These
were statements which described each node using the commonly occurring
words from within the node. From this process, 74 categories emerged.
Phase Four
This Phase required reviews of the categories to locate what Braun and Clark
(2006) describe as the ‘essence’ of the category and to understand the meaning
and impact on the research question.
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