In this guest post Jane Shore and Sarah Singer Quast remind us of the importance of bridging research and practice, and give specific recommendations.

Are you thinking about whether to use CAQDAS, Computer Assisted Qualitative Data AnalysiS, to manage, code, and assist in the analysis of your qualitative data? Reviewing available software is a good first step, before you decide whether and how to use what technology. In this post, find resources about how to use NVivo - other software options will be considered in additional posts.

In addition to selling their well-known data analysis software, NVivo offers lots of free resources for qualitative and mixed methods researchers. They have a blog, a webinar series, and practical how-to videos. Find resources for academic writers whether or not you use their products.

Find strategies for setting up a codebook for qualitative data analysis.

For centuries, being a scientist has meant learning to live with limited data. People only share so much on a survey form. Experiments don’t account for all the conditions of real world situations. Field research and interviews can only be generalized so far. Network analyses don’t tell us everything we want to know about the ties among people. And text/content/document analysis methods allow us to dive deep into a small set of documents, or they give us a shallow understanding of a larger archive. Never both. So far, the truly great scientists have had to apply many of these approaches to help us better see the world through their kaleidoscope of imperfect lenses.