The strategies/tactics distinction has never been more important

The strategies/tactics distinction has never been more important

If you’re a teacher of qualitative methods, don’t stick your head in the sand about these developments and thereby neglect to equip your students with the appropriate mindsets about these tools and skills to use them appropriately. They will likely use them whether you teach them about how to do so or not.

We have a responsibility to the current and future generations of qualitative researchers, and being explicit about the difference between analytic strategies (what we plan to do) and software tactics (how we do it), and the relationship between the two, has never been more important.

Christina Silver PhD is Associate Professor (Teaching) in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey, where she is Director of the CAQDAS Networking Project. She is also co-founder and director of Qualitative Data Analysis Services, Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FCaSS). She is author of many publications about the use of digital tools for qualitative analysis, including Using Software in Qualitative Research: A Step by Step Guide (with Ann Lewins) and Qualitative Analysis with ATLAS.ti: The Five-Level QDA Method (with Nick Woolf).