SOC 513: Qualitative Research Methods

Research Methods

After gathering background information through your literature review, it’s time to do your research. There are a wide range of methods for gathering and interpreting data available to you, some tools for which are outlined below.

Tools and Technologies

• Qualtrics: Qualtrics is a web-based survey service that allows users to easily create and distribute surveys, collect and store data, analyze data, and produce reports.
• SAS: SAS is a software suite that can mine, alter, manage and retrieve data from a variety of sources and perform statistical analysis on it. See the Software for Students page on Iowa State's IT website for more information. 
• NVivo: NVivo is a research tool used for qualitative analysis that is available on all computers in the Iowa State University Library. The research tool is particularly useful for coding and organizing data from surveys, interviews, and focus groups.