When presenting the analysis portion, these examples were helpful in illustrating the underlying narrative. 1).įollowing the development of this hierarchy, I went back into the literature, to find examples of how each theme was applied and referred to in the literature. After this process, I identified five broad themes were identified within the literature, some with as few as three associated nodes, and some with as many as thirteen (fig. The software has some features that assist with finding significance within the themes including ability to make mind maps, charts, and word frequency queries. In practice, this process took a few revisions in order to fully think through how and why nodes should be sorted and organized. Schedule extra time for this portion of the research.ĭuring the phase of theme development and organization, NVivo made it quite easy to sort nodes into broader themes. Word to the wise: coding is made easier with NVivo, but the software doesn’t do all the work for you. Adding new nodes is fairly simple, as there will likely be themes that come up throughout the coding process. Once code labels are identified, coding the dataset involves (a lot!) of highlighting and decisions about which node(s) to assign to that piece of text. These are fairly easy to change as needed, being able to see an overview of the codes you are working with is definitely helpful, and it is easy to create hierarchies within the node sets. 3 NVivo becomes particularly useful at the stages of coding and theme development.ĭuring the coding phase, NVivo will help save descriptions, inclusion, and exclusion criteria for each code. Thematic analysis typically encompasses steps which take the researcher from familiarization of the data, through development of codes and themes, and finally to being able to tie these themes to the broader picture within the literature. With over fifty sources to analyze in this review, the thought of doing this work manually seemed daunting.

Using NVivo to facilitate the thematic analysis in this project was ultimately extremely helpful in organizing and managing the data. 1 I have worked with Veronica since summer 2016 on this project, which led to a thematic analysis of the literature seeking to better understand the professional practices implemented and challenges faced in managing, preserving and providing access to local music collections in libraries and archives. This post builds off of an earlier one by research assistant Veronica Kmiech, which outlines the process for searching and identifying literature on the topic of how practitioners in cultural heritage organizations manage local music collections.

Education and Music Library, University of Saskatchewan

Nvivo thematic analysis tutorial