Aquad is a proprietary Computer assisted qualitative data analysis software

Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software

Computer Assisted/Aided Qualitative Data AnalysiS is the use of computer software to aid qualitative research such as transcription analysis, coding and text interpretation, recursive abstraction, content analysis, discourse analysis, grounded theory methodology, etc.-Definition:CAQDAS is used in...

 (CAQDAS) that supports content analysis of open data in qualitative research

Qualitative research

Qualitative research is a method of inquiry employed in many different academic disciplines, traditionally in the social sciences, but also in market research and further contexts. Qualitative researchers aim to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the reasons that govern such...

 in psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

, education

Education

Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

, sociology

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

, philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

, medicine

Medicine

Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

, ethnography

Ethnography

Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...

, politics

Politics

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

,etc. Open data are usually collected through observation

Observation

Observation is either an activity of a living being, such as a human, consisting of receiving knowledge of the outside world through the senses, or the recording of data using scientific instruments. The term may also refer to any data collected during this activity...

, introspection

Introspection

Introspection is the self-observation and reporting of conscious inner thoughts, desires and sensations. It is a conscious and purposive process relying on thinking, reasoning, and examining one's own thoughts, feelings, and, in more spiritual cases, one's soul...

, narratives, discussion groups, interviews

Interviews

Interviews is:# the plural form of "interview"# a compilation album by Bob Marley & the Wailers, see Interviews # a C++ toolkit for the X Window System, see InterViews...

, etc.

Author

Aquad was developed in Germany in 1987 by Günter L. Huber, professor at the Department of Educational Psychology at the Institute of Educational Science at the University of Tübingen, to make up for limited manpower at content analysis in a research project.

Description

Aquad provides tools as:

• Text searching
• Coding
• Writing memos (annotation
  Annotation
  An annotation is a note that is made while reading any form of text. This may be as simple as underlining or highlighting passages.Annotated bibliographies give descriptions about how each source is useful to an author in constructing a paper or argument...
  
  )
• Word analysis
• Retrieving by file name, code, keyword, or parts of memo texts
• Table analysis
• Construction of linkage hypotheses
• Comparison of cases/files

Presentation of data

Data could be analysed as written text

Written language

A written language is the representation of a language by means of a writing system. Written language is an invention in that it must be taught to children, who will instinctively learn or create spoken or gestural languages....

, audio

Audio

Audio is an electrical or other representation of sound.Audio may also refer to:*Audio, audible content in media production and publishing*AUDIO , an American R&B band of 5 brothers formerly known as TNT Boyz and as B5...

, photo, or video

Video

Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...

. Initially, Computer assisted qualitative data analysis software

Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software

Computer Assisted/Aided Qualitative Data AnalysiS is the use of computer software to aid qualitative research such as transcription analysis, coding and text interpretation, recursive abstraction, content analysis, discourse analysis, grounded theory methodology, etc.-Definition:CAQDAS is used in...

 analysed only verbal texts. The observation

Observation

Observation is either an activity of a living being, such as a human, consisting of receiving knowledge of the outside world through the senses, or the recording of data using scientific instruments. The term may also refer to any data collected during this activity...

, introspection

Introspection

Introspection is the self-observation and reporting of conscious inner thoughts, desires and sensations. It is a conscious and purposive process relying on thinking, reasoning, and examining one's own thoughts, feelings, and, in more spiritual cases, one's soul...

, narratives, discussion groups, interviews

Interviews

Interviews is:# the plural form of "interview"# a compilation album by Bob Marley & the Wailers, see Interviews # a C++ toolkit for the X Window System, see InterViews...

, etc. were transcribed and CAQDAS only analysed the transcription (linguistics)

Transcription (linguistics)

Transcription in the linguistic sense is the systematic representation of language in written form. The source can either be utterances or preexisting text in another writing system, although some linguists only consider the former as transcription.Transcription should not be confused with...

.

Situation of data

Data could be directly analysed on the screen (one-step) or outside (two-steps). One-step allows to code on the screen with digitalised data. Two-steps allows to enter codes on the screen keeping the documents as realia

Realia

Realia may refer to:* Realia * Realia * Realia...

 on the desk or in other means as cameras, TV, etc. For instance, two-steps allows to analyse recordings, diaries, incunabula, or objects without transcribing, taking photos, or scanning them.

Comparison of cases/files by Boolean analysis

Aquad allows comparison of cases/files by "logical minimization". It applies Boolean method of qualitative comparison by Ragin (1989) and detects critical features to identify types of cases.

Versions

Real available version is AQUAD Six that includes examples of analyses of written text

Written language

A written language is the representation of a language by means of a writing system. Written language is an invention in that it must be taught to children, who will instinctively learn or create spoken or gestural languages....

, audio

Audio

Audio is an electrical or other representation of sound.Audio may also refer to:*Audio, audible content in media production and publishing*AUDIO , an American R&B band of 5 brothers formerly known as TNT Boyz and as B5...

, photo, and video

Video

Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...

. . A demo version and a manual (Huber & Gürtler, 2004) are also available on the website. Aquad is available in German, English, and Spanish.

See also

• Qualitative research
  Qualitative research
  Qualitative research is a method of inquiry employed in many different academic disciplines, traditionally in the social sciences, but also in market research and further contexts. Qualitative researchers aim to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the reasons that govern such...
  
  
• Qualitative economics
  Qualitative economics
  Qualitative economics refers to representation and analysis of information about the direction of change in some economic variable as related to change of some other economic variable...
  
  
• Qualitative marketing research
  Qualitative marketing research
  Qualitative marketing research is a set of research techniques, used in marketing and the social sciences, in which data is obtained from a relatively small group of respondents and not analyzed with inferential statistics...
  
  
• Qualitative psychological research
  Qualitative psychological research
  In psychology, qualitative research has come to be defined as research whose findings are not arrived at by statistical or other quantitative procedures. Qualitative research is often said to be naturalistic. That is, its goal is to understand behaviour in a natural setting...
  
  
• Sampling (case studies)