Instructor
I am MBA Director at the Swinburne Business School. Throughout my career as a researcher and educator, I have been passionate about helping people realise their potential by developing the knowledge, skills and confidence to achieve their goals - whether that is preparing MBA students for leadership or supporting researchers to undertake high-quality research.
Over the past two decades, I have designed and conducted qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods research across higher education, government, industry and the not-for-profit sector. My research has attracted competitive funding from organisations including the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Australian Government and VicHealth, and has been published in leading international journals.
I have been fortunate to receive multiple awards recognising excellence in teaching and learning. Across all of my teaching, I believe in developing the practical capabilities and confidence that students and researchers need to succeed. Through the Australian Consortium for Social and Political Research Inc. (ACSPRI), I deliver professional development courses in qualitative research, NVivo and mixed methods research.
Whether participants are completely new to qualitative research or looking to deepen their analytical skills, my aim is to create a supportive and engaging learning environment where they feel comfortable asking questions, exploring ideas and developing confidence in their own research. My workshops combine methodological rigour with practical, hands-on learning, enabling participants to apply new knowledge directly to their own research. My goal is for every participant to leave with the capability and confidence to design, analyse and communicate rigorous research, from research design through to reporting.
This course is a comprehensive five-day introduction to qualitative research and data analysis using NVivo. Designed for researchers who are new to NVivo, as well as those beginning their qualitative research journey, the course combines practical software training with the methodological foundations required to undertake high-quality qualitative research.
Rather than focusing solely on the mechanics of using NVivo, participants learn how to design, organise, analyse and report qualitative research projects. The course follows the complete qualitative research workflow, beginning with research design and progressing through project planning, data preparation, coding, theme development, advanced analysis, visualisation, interpretation and writing up qualitative findings.
Throughout the course, participants work through practical examples and hands-on exercises that demonstrate how NVivo supports rigorous qualitative analysis across a wide range of research contexts.
By the end of the course, participants will be able to:
- design and structure an NVivo project
- organise and manage qualitative data effectively
- apply appropriate coding approaches to qualitative data
- develop themes and analytical insights using queries and visualisation tools
- document analytical thinking using memos and annotations
- apply strategies to enhance the rigour and trustworthiness of qualitative research
- confidently report and write up qualitative research findings.
The course is delivered using the latest available version of NVivo for Windows. Participants are required to install NVivo for Windows before the course commences and ensure they have access to the software for the duration of the workshop. Please note that the course is designed for the Windows version of NVivo and does not provide instruction or technical support for NVivo for Mac.
This course was previously known as Introduction to Computer-assisted Qualitative Data Analysis using NVivo
The course follows the complete qualitative research lifecycle, from project design through to reporting, combining methodological foundations with practical, hands-on experience using NVivo.
Day 1: DESIGN - Building Your Qualitative Research Project.
- The role of computer-assisted qualitative data analysis (CAQDAS) and NVivo
- Understanding the NVivo workspace
- Designing an effective NVivo project
- Managing data, cases, classifications and attributes
- Importing qualitative data (documents, interviews, images, audio and video)
- Project management and audit trails.
Day 2: ORGANISE - Preparing Your Data for Analysis.
- Working with datasets, bibliographic databases and web-based data
- Documenting and supporting analysis using annotations, memos and links
- Mind, concept and project maps
- Principles of qualitative coding
- Establishing rigour and trustworthiness
Day 3: ANALYSE - Coding and Exploring Your Data
- Coding qualitative data in NVivo
- Inductive, deductive and in vivo coding
- Developing coding frameworks and codebooks
- Automatic coding strategies
- Text search, coding and matrix queries
- Comparing themes across participants and groups
- Building relationships between themes, cases and data
Day 4: INTERPRET - Interpreting and Visualising Your Findings
- Choosing effective qualitative visualisations
- Theme co-occurence and relationship analysis
- Explore, comparison and cluster diagrams
- Heat maps, flow charts and thematic displays
- Framework matricies
- Inter-rater reliability and coding comparison
Day 5: REPORT - Communicating Your Findings
- Moving from codes to themes and theoretical contribution
- Writing compelling qualitative findings
- Presenting evidence effectively
- Theme tables and visual displays
- Common pitfalls in qualitative reporting
- Participant project presentations and discussion
This course is designed for researchers who are new to NVivo, as well as those beginning qualitative research. It is suitable for postgraduate research students, academic staff, government researchers, health researchers, consultants and industry professionals from all disciplines.
While no previous experience with qualitative research methods is assumed, participants with existing qualitative research experience will also benefit from learning structured workflows and advanced analytical techniques using NVivo.
The course is delivered using the latest available version of NVivo for Windows. Participants are required to install NVivo for Windows before the course commences and ensure they have access to the software for the duration of the workshop. Please note that the course is designed for the Windows version of NVivo and does not provide instruction or technical support for NVivo for Mac.
Other reading:
- Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2022). Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide. SAGE.
- Miles, M.B., Huberman, A. M., & Saldaña, J. (2020). Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods Sourcebook (4th ed.). SAGE.
- Saldaña, J. (2021). The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers (4th ed.). SAGE.
Participants will receive comprehensive electronic course notes, templates and practical exercises.
Participants will complete all exercises using the supplied practice datasets. The concepts taught throughout the course are applicable across qualitative research undertaken in academic, government, health and industry settings.
The course not only taught me how to use NVIVO, but also taught me a lot about qualitative research methods. This course has been invaluable for both my work and study.
Planning to work with high participant numbers in high quality research. I had done some introductory courses with the library which was ok. Thought the presenter with both a strong qual background and participant centered approach, really helped me understand how NVivo's various functions would be of most value.
As a PhD student doing qualitative research, it was informative, challenging and adequately rigorous.
I enjoyed this course as it was practical, I will be using this software in the near future and now I feel confident to use it.
Nicola was super helpful and explained things well. The course notes also helped a lot. I think it is a great course.
I definitely benefited from attending the course and can do things with the program now that I couldn't do easily at the start of the course.
We got through 5 days of heavy content in an interactive and engaging way - the presenter did really well!
The online sessions were actually very effective. The presenter was very conscious of the limitations of online access and reduced interaction that occurs in the face to face setting. The presenter provided ample opportunity to ask questions, review activities etc. which was helpful.
Went from zero knowledge of NVIVO to feeling very confident.
Working on projects is a great way to interpret the learning. The course was well structured between listening and doing.
Nicola is AMAZING she explains the applications of technical information really well. Very rich in terms of learning.
I came with some basic knowledge of coding in NVIVO but had not done any analysis. I now feel I could set up a new project in a robust and useful way and undertake analysis. The instructor and students both helped to answer my queries which was just great.
This interactive five-day workshop combines concise presentations with live demonstrations, guided exercises and independent practice.
Each topic is introduced through qualitative research principles before being demonstrated in NVivo using real-world examples. Participants then complete practical activities with guidance from the instructor, progressively building an end-to-end qualitative research project throughout the course.
The emphasis is on learning by doing, ensuring participants leave with both methodological understanding and practical confidence in using NVivo to support high-quality qualitative research.
Unlike many software-based training courses, this workshop integrates qualitative research methodology with practical application in NVivo. Participants learn not only how to use the software, but also how to apply it to support rigorous qualitative research - from research design through to reporting.