About QDAP
Qualitative Data Analysis Program (QDAP)
Provide us with the raw data and your analytical vision. We will work with your research team to craft a tailored methodology to code the text for key concepts. This allows you to focus on the larger analytical questions while we quickly and reliably extract the data you tell us you need to reach valid inferences.
Services
We offer professional support for key project management tasks such as:
- Focus groups and interviews
- Audio transcription
- Data preparation, cleaning, and management
- Codebook development and testing
- Online coding adjudication
- Rater reliability and validity reporting
- Results analysis and expression
QDAP will provide you with a team of professionally trained coders and a graduate student or UCSUR staff project manager. We also work collaboratively with the qualitative research consultants at ResearchTalk Inc., preparing researchers and their students to be more fluent in the project life cycle using ATLAS.ti. ATLAS.ti is commercial software that supports project management, enables multiple coders to collaborate on a single project, and generates output that facilitates analysis.
We offer a robust mix of existing and experimental tools, careful iterative techniques, and energetic, participatory training sessions. Our goal is to work with researchers who are interested in generating studies with valid observations and accurately reported inter-rater agreement rates. QDAP will lend objectivity to your qualitative project. We will work closely with you to determine which coding strategy can identify all the information you need to reach solid evidence-based inferences.
See the QDAP-UMass home page for more information.
Dr. Stuart W. Shulman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science in the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He was the founder (2005) and Director of Qualitative Data Analysis Program (QDAP) at the University of Pittsburgh from 2005-2008. Currently he is the Director of QDAP-UMass. QDAP and QDAP-UMass are fee-for-service coding labs that work on projects funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other U.S. funding agencies. Dr. Shulman has been the Principal Investigator and Project Director on related National Science Foundation-funded research and workshop projects focusing on electronic rulemaking, human language technologies, manual annotation, digital citizenship, YouTube and US elections, as well as service-learning efforts in the United States.
