The key concepts

This page introduces key concepts that will help you to get up and running in NVivo.

Files

In NVivo, files include the materials you want to analyze and your ideas about them. Here are some examples of the files you might work with in a project:

Find out more about the types of files you can import and refer to Bring in your files and get organized for ideas about how you can prepare and manage your files.

Coding and codes

You code files in order to collect in one place—called a code —all the content related to themes you identify.

As you explore your files, you can select content and code it to a code. For example, while working through your interviews you find that a number of participants talk about the natural environment—code each occurrence to the code Natural environment.

When you open the code, you can see all the references in one place, allowing you to reflect on the theme, develop your ideas, compare attitudes and discover patterns:

Organizing your codes is also an important part of the analytical process. As you catalog your codes in a hierarchy, you can refine your thoughts and draw connections between themes. For example, since the themes of Natural environment and Water quality are related, you might organize them like this:

• Natural Environment
  • Habitat
  • Landscape
  • Water quality

Refer to Coding for information on ways to code (along with links to detailed instructions).

For coding strategies and ideas, refer to Code files and manage codes.

Cases

Cases are the units of analysis in a project. Often they are people, but they can be organizations, locations, or any other entity that you are researching.

1 Codes represent the topics found in your files. These codes might be descriptive (this text is about that topic) or analytical (this issue matters because...).

2 Cases represent your 'units of observation'—which might include people, places, sites or organizations. You can use case classifications to record information about your cases.

Case classifications

In the course of your research, you may want to make comparisons based on:

• The demographic attributes of your participants (for example, you may want to compare attitudes based on gender or age).
• The attributes of places, organizations or other entities (for example, you could compare how issues are handled in large and small schools).

To make these kinds of comparisons, you need to set up case classifications. For example, to gather demographic information about interview participants you could:

Refer to Create case classifications for detailed instructions.

File classifications (to manage bibliographical data)

You can use file classifications to manage the bibliographical attributes of your files. You can import this data from reference management tools like EndNote or Zotero—or you can create it in NVivo and export it when you are ready to write-up your project.

For example, if you work with articles you could:

Setting up file classifications also facilitates the use of queries and visualizations—for example, you could use a matrix coding query to see if a theme is prevalent across various types of files (is a theme appearing in interviews but not in journal articles?)