Qualitative Interviewing and analysis using MAXQDA

Dr. Katy Wheeler is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at The University of Essex. She has extensive experience of conducting interviews and analysing qualitative data from interviews, focus groups, surveys and documents. She is the co-author of the popular SAGE textbook How to do Qualitative Interviewing (2022) and is a MAXQDA Professional Trainer. Her research interests are in the fields of sustainability and consumption, and she has published widely within leading academic journals and two monographs, Fair-Trade and the Citizen-Consumer: Shopping for Justice (Palgrave, 2012) and Recycling and Consumption Work: Social and moral economies (Palgrave, 2015). She is currently pursuing a project on sustainability education.

Find out more about Dr Katy Wheeler by viewing her staff profile or LinkedIn page.

Day 1: Introduction to Qualitative Interviewing

The course is ideally suited to people who need to build rapport and trust with others through the use of interviewing techniques. We begin by outlining the sorts of research questions that are best addressed through qualitative interviews, touching on debates about the nature of qualitative data. We then consider the practical considerations when undertaking a qualitative interview project–from ethical requirements through to selecting participants, choosing a location in which to conduct the interview and the sorts of things you ought to take with you into the field. There will be practical exercises on designing qualitative interview questions and opportunities to practice key interview skills through interactive exercises. Attention will be focused on the key skills that qualitative interviewers need to collect good quality data (including body language, asking open questions, probing, prompting and active listening).

The course runs from 9.30am to 5pm. 

Day 2: Using MAXQDA to analyse interview data

Once you have collected your interview data, you will then need to process and analyse it. Many researchers use QDAS (Qualitative Data Analysis Software) to help them to manage this task, and you will be introduced to the popular package MAXQDA (see www.maxqda.com for more information) to achieve this. This software is a useful tool for managing and organising data, for categorising and exploring this data, and aids the interrogation of data through visualisations and summarising functions. We will cover the basics of setting up a new project in MAXQDA, coding and memoing, before moving on to some of the more advanced features such as visual tools, document variables and mixed method analysis. The course will introduce and demonstrate the new ‘AI Assist’ feature (for generating summaries and code suggestions) and discuss some of the key considerations when using this tool. Participants should bring some data or documents they are familiar with to help them to evaluate the usefulness of AI assist tools. No prior knowledge of MAXQDA is required.

The course runs from 9.30am to 5pm.

By the end of this course, participants will

• Understand key issues associated with qualitative interviewing, including recruitment, ethics and challenging circumstances.
• Be familiar with the key skills of interviewing, including body language, asking open questions, probing and active listening.
• Understand how to use MAXQDA to undertake a basic qualitative analysis, including data familiarisation, coding (manual and automatic) and continued reflection on the data.
• Appreciate how document variables can be used to view data according to fixed characteristics.
• Evaluate the strengths and weakness of the ‘AI Assist’ Feature to aid qualitative analysis.

This is an introductory course and no previous experience of qualitative methodology (either interviewing or familiarity with QDAS) is assumed.

The course is suitable for professionals seeking to learn how to create useful data through qualitative interviewing techniques and analyse this data using software. It will also be suitable for academics and post-graduate students who need an introduction to qualitative approaches to data collection and analysis.

It is recommended that you come to the course with the MAXQDA software installed on your laptop, but you do not need to do so, as the training venue has Windows machines with the software installed on them.

The course is delivered entirely in English. Thus, you are required to be highly competent in English.

The application form includes a brief questionnaire relating to your experience and credentials, which you are required to complete as part of your application. 

The fees for the Qualitative Interviewing and Analysis using MAXQDA course are:

Fee includes:

• Daily lunches and refreshments from our in house caterer.
• A certification upon completing your course, endorsed by the University of Essex Department of Sociology & Criminology

The delivery of this course is dependent on a minimum number of applicants. In the unlikely event that this minimum is not met, we would have to reconsider the feasibility of running this course.

* All participants who take the two day course will receive a complimentary copy of the book ‘How to Do Qualitative Interviewing’ (Morgan Brett & Wheeler, 2022)