RQDA

{{short description|Qualitative data analysis tool}}

{{Infobox software

| name = RQDA

| logo =

| screenshot = rqda.png

| screenshot size = 250px

| caption = Main window in RQDA

| developer = Huang Ronggui

| latest_release_version = 0.3-1

| latest_release_date = Mar 2018

| discontinued = yes

| operating_system = Microsoft Windows, Linux, macOS

| genre = Qualitative Data Analysis Qualitative Research

| license = New BSD license

| website = {{url|http://rqda.r-forge.r-project.org/}}

}}

RQDA is an R package for computer-assisted qualitative data analysis or CAQDAS, making it one of the few open source tools to assist qualitative coding of textual data. Note that there are also other popular but mostly proprietary CAQDAS tools such as NVivo and Atlas.ti but these software come at a cost. RQDA was developed by Huang Ronggui during his PhD study at the City University of Hong Kong, which he still maintains until today.

RQDA is installable from, and runs within, the R statistical software, but has a separate window running a graphical user interface (through RGtk2). RQDA's approach allowed for tight integration of the constructivist approach of qualitative research with quantitative data analysis which can increase the rigor, transparency, and validity of qualitative research.{{Cite journal |doi = 10.1108/QMR-02-2016-0014|title = An RQDA-based constructivist methodology for qualitative research|journal = Qualitative Market Research|volume = 20|pages = 90–112|year = 2017|last1 = Chandra|first1 = Yanto|last2 = Shang|first2 = Liang|s2cid = 168241431}}

The use of RQDA is best grounded in the tradition of qualitative research where the main function of CAQDAS is to assist with the "coding" of textual data. The data could be a word (e.g., society), a concept (e.g., "social entrepreneurship"), a phrase (e.g., social entrepreneurship is a hybrid of commercial and social welfare logics), to a sentence or paragraph (e.g., "social enterprise concerns citizen-driven initiatives that aim to create public value. While the idea of social enterprise emerged officially since the 1980s, its actual practice predated to the tribal era where humans engaged in economic activities while simultaneously aiming to create collective social outcomes").

Researchers and analysts typically use RQDA using two types of coding approaches: inductive and deductive. In inductive coding, a researcher codes a body of text "from the ground up". That is, the textual units that are coded are not pre-determined by specific theory/literature/concepts but the texts are coded to discover new concepts/ideas/theories to emerge from the body of textual data. Meanwhile, in deductive coding, a researcher starts from a pre-specified framework/theory/literature and coded a body of textual data to confirm that such theory or concepts do exist in the data. The former is exploratory (to discover new concepts or ideas) and one does not care how many times (the frequency) a new concept occurs, while the latter is confirmatory (to unearth something new) and takes into account how many times a concept occurs in the body of text.

The use of CAQDAS for textual data coding should be grounded in the tradition in qualitative research. One notable example is the grounded theory approach by Corbin and Strauss{{Citation | vauthors=((Corbin, J. M.)), ((Strauss, A.)) | year=1990 | title=Grounded theory research: Procedures, canons, and evaluative criteria | publisher=Springer Science and Business Media LLC | url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf00988593}} (1990). See also grounded theory by Glaser and Strauss{{cite book | vauthors=((Glaser, B. G.)), ((Strauss, A. L.)) | date=5 July 2017 | title=The Discovery of Grounded Theory | publisher=Routledge | url=http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203793206 | doi=10.4324/9780203793206}}

(2017).

One book on RQDA offers a systematic demonstration{{cite book | vauthors=((Chandra, Y.)), ((Shang, L.)) | date= 2019 | title=Qualitative Research Using R: A Systematic Approach | publisher=Springer Nature Singapore | url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3170-1 | doi=10.1007/978-981-13-3170-1}}

of its use by grounding it in on a systematic and structured approach in doing qualitative inductive coding a la Dennis Gioia, or known as the Gioia Methodology.{{Citation | vauthors=((Gioia, D. A.)), ((Corley, K. G.)), ((Hamilton, A. L.)) | year=2012 | title=Seeking Qualitative Rigor in Inductive Research | publisher=SAGE Publications | url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1094428112452151}}

This methodology has gained popularity in various fields, from management and organization studies, marketing, to public administration. This book contains multiple parts, some of the key components are: an overview{{Citation | vauthors=((Chandra, Y.)), ((Shang, L.)) | year=2019 | title=Qualitative Research: An Overview | publisher=Springer Nature Singapore | url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3170-1_1}}

of qualitative research, an overview of CAQDAS,{{Citation | vauthors=((Chandra, Y.)), ((Shang, L.)) | year=2019 | title=Computer-Assisted Qualitative Research: An Overview | publisher=Springer Nature Singapore | url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3170-1_2}}

how to conduct{{Citation | vauthors=((Chandra, Y.)), ((Shang, L.)) | year=2019 | title=How to Conduct Caqdas-Based Qualitative Research | publisher=Springer Nature Singapore | url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3170-1_3}}

CAQDAS based qualitative research, how to do inductive{{Citation | vauthors=((Chandra, Y.)), ((Shang, L.)) | year=2019 | title=Inductive Coding | publisher=Springer Nature Singapore | url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3170-1_8}}

coding, how to use data attributes and memos,{{Citation | vauthors=((Chandra, Y.)), ((Shang, L.)) | year=2019 | title=Data Attributes and Memos | publisher=Springer Nature Singapore | url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3170-1_9}}

how to aggregate{{Citation | vauthors=((Chandra, Y.)), ((Shang, L.)) | year=2019 | title=Codes Aggregation, Plotting and Exporting | publisher=Springer Nature Singapore | url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3170-1_10}}

or abstract codes to a higher level and visualizing them, and finally, how to reach closure in the analysis by formulating a grounded theory{{Citation | vauthors=((Chandra, Y.)), ((Shang, L.)) | year=2019 | title=Grounded Theory Development | publisher=Springer Nature Singapore | url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3170-1_11}}

from the codes.