I learned qualitative research through my 1986 PhD study of voluntarily childless couples. I thought that using index cards in boxes to store the coded data was much smarter than putting it in hanging files, but I wished I could move from the quotation on the card to the rest of the interview without having to get up and find the whole transcript. At about the time I was using cards, my supervisor Lyn Richards had the famous disaster (when the baby ate the quotation) that according to legend, led eventually to NVivo. Through seeing how the computer aided Lyn's research, I became interested in the potential of qualitative computing.

I made the move from index cards to NVivo2 to research what people actually do when they are coding. My interest in this topic was sparked by an email from a researcher complaining that coding made one feel 'like a zombie in front of a confuser'. I thought 'yeah, me too'. From the email discussion about coding, I learned some very useful tips. The most valuable for me is this: researchers should take time out from coding to think, and time out from thinking to let their unconscious mind solve problems. (You can find the paper about this listed in References.

I have also researched how postgraduate students make choices of qualitative software, and what examiners are looking for as they read theses that contain qualitative data.

I taught sociology and research methods in the school of Global Studies Social Science and Planning at the RMIT university until 2006 when I became an independent researcher and NVivo trainer. I am currently an associate at the Centre for Applied Research at RMIT ( http://www.rmit.edu.au/casr ) with the unofficial title of 'coding nerd'.

Contact:
Dr Helen Marshall,
Senior Associate, Centre for Applied Social Research, RMIT University,
GPO Box 2476V, Melbourne Victoria 3001, Australia