I booked three MAXQDA software trainings this month, and completed two. The third will be in April. It’s always tedious to learn a new application, and this is no exception, but what is different about it compared to the prior two Qualitative Data Analysis programs I attempted to learn in 2023, and the one I tried to use earlier this year, is that it is fully functional on my MacBook Air.
I took on coding because I conducted 10 artist interviews Fall 2022, and have intended to decipher them since. Finally, today, March 14, 2024, during my second training session, I actually started grasping what it entails, and began coding two of interviews.
Finding the right-for-me-and-my-Mac QDA software, learning to use it, and doing the coding have collectively been the most stressful aspect of my PhD so far. I hope to integrate some of the material into my dissertation.
Beyond the technical hurdles and taking so long to begin using the software, I realize that I made several mistakes with the interviews themselves:
1. I conducted them too early in my research process. I would have been better served to have done them at the beginning of my 3rd year, when my own research questions were better formed.
2. I asked at least one too many questions, both initially in my plan, and also in the interviews. All would have been better served by my asking two or three max, which created the problem of...
3. The interviews were too long. They would have been simpler to code or decipher, and ultimately more useful to my research and dissertation had I limited each to 15-20 minutes vs. 50-90 minutes.
