Network Analysis of Qualitative Data: An Integrative Software Application to Visualize and Assess Similarities in Participants’ Qualitative Contributions

Abstract

Content This commentary is in response to Whatley and Stich ’ s (2021) article in which they present an integration of network analyses methods and qualitatively coded data. The lead author of that study participated both in the 2019 American Educational Research Association (AERA) ex-tended professional development workshop where I offered this framework and in the applied seminar on statistical and social network analysis where I developed this framework and began offering it in 2013. In addition to offering this seminar annually for 8 years now and the AERA workshops annually since 2019, I also offered workshops at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2016 and 2017. At least 750 people have participated in these seminars and workshops; additionally, the published manuscript containing this integrative framework (Gonz´alez Canch´e, 2019) has been downloaded over 1300 times. Importantly, the apparent reach of this integrative framework, the positive feedback offered by seminar and workshop participants throughout the years, and the cost-free programming code software used to implement this mixed method research framework (The R Project), the vast majority of workshop attendees have been unable to apply “ Network Analysis of Qualitative Data ” (NAQD) in their own research. These procedures are statistically and computer programming code heavy and require advanced data management and matrix manipulation skills, both of which represent truly dif fi cult barriers for NAQD ’ s mainstream application to qualitative and mixed methods research. Indeed, though all statistical code has been consistently provided to students and workshop attendees throughout the years, only a handful of participants have been able to surpass these remarkable hurdles. This commentary is therefore founded on the idea that the time has to remove these barriers in order to offer meaningful access to the