NVivo

Keeping a Journal

Keeping a record of decisions made when planning and conducting a research project, tracking events occurring during the project (foreseen and unforeseen), or even recording random thoughts about the project, will assist an investigator to prepare an accurate record of the methods adopted for the project and the rationale for those methods. Journaling serves also to simulate thinking, to prevent loss of ideas that might be worthy of follow-up, and to provide an audit trail of development in thinking toward final conclusions.

NVivo can work with text that has been recorded using Microsoft Word, or a journal can be recorded progressively within NVivo. Some researchers keep all their notes in a single document, whereas others prefer to make several documents perhaps to separate methodological from substantive issues. The critical contribution that NVivo can make here is to assist the researcher in keeping track of their ideas through coding the content of the journal. A coding system in NVivo works rather like an index but with a bonus. The text in the document is highlighted and tagged with a code (a label that the researcher devises). Codes might be theoretically based and designed a priori, or they can be created or modified (renamed, rearranged, split, combined, or content recoded) in an emergent way as the project proceeds. The bonus of using codes in NVivo is that all materials that have been coded in a particular way can be retrieved together, and if needed for clarification, any coded segment can be shown [Page 945]within its original context. A research journal is a notoriously messy document, comprising random thoughts, notes of conversations, ideas from reading, and perhaps even carefully considered strategies that entered in no particular sequence. By coding their journal, researchers can find instantly any thoughts or information they have on any particular aspect of their project, regardless of how messy the original document was. This different view of what has been written not only brings order out of chaos and retrieves long-forgotten thoughts but also prompts deeper thinking and perhaps reconceptualization of that topic after visualizing all the material on one topic together.

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