(Part 5 of 5 from the series: 5 Steps to Mastering Qualitative Data Analysis)

By now you’ve put a lot of work into your project. After collecting your data, you prepared it for analysis, got acquainted with some general themes, then scrupulously marked and coded segments. In Phase 4, you took a step back and refined your coding scheme, checking your work for inconsistencies and redundancy.

At this point, your data are neatly organized and ready to be reported. As you write up your final document, it’s important to refer often to your data. It’s easy to get side-tracked while discussing a particularly interesting theme and overlook less remarkable results.

Qualrus can generate a number of reports designed to illuminate different aspects of your project. To ensure that you fairly and completely characterize your project data, keep these reports handy while writing your final manuscript.

QTools Statistics

The statistics page on the QTools form (Tools > QTools > Statistics) provides a quick summary of codes by frequency of occurrence for both individual codes and code pairs. When this page is opened Qualrus searches the database, counting codes and code pairs.

The scope of this search can be changed on the “Source” section of the form to search only the current source, selected sources, or all sources in a project. Changing the scope of the search in the Source box will re-compute the values. Selecting an item from the code or code pair list displays the corresponding segments in the segments lists. Selecting a segment displays the segment’s contents and codes.

Use visual diagrams

Remember when you created a hierarchy of codes back in Phase 4? It’s a good idea to conceptualize these relationships visually while you generate your report.

The lower right pane of the Code Editor window generates a visual representation of any code you select in the sidebar, including links to other codes.

Additionally, you can generate visual reports by going to Editors > Views. Click “New” to save a new view. You can choose to use the Star View or Network View.

The Star View is designed to focus on a single code at a time and display all of the direct links between that “in focus” code and any other codes. So we must select the code that is to be the focus code from the pulldown list of codes in the top middle of the window.

The Network View is similar to the Star View, except there is no central code, all codes are equal. Unlike the Star View, in the Network View the codes can be any number of links chained together.

Extend reporting with scripts

Qualrus scripts allow you to generate customized reports that are not built in to Qualrus. You can check out the Qualrus manual or Help files to learn more about building your own scripts.

Also, we have a few scripts available for free on our Support page. Just follow the directions on the Support page to save and run your scripts.

Writing your report

In your final report, remember to include:

• A description of the procedure you used to analyze data
• An organized list or table of your findings (use the parent-level codes you created in Phase 4)
• Representative quotes for each theme (which you identified in Phase 4)

Of course, there is more you should include based on the purpose of your project!

Now, you’re a master!

And that wraps up Phase 5, along with our entire series “5 Steps to Mastering Qualitative Data Analysis”. Hopefully, these tips have made you a more efficient, confident data analysis expert.