Using NVivo to Evaluate a Program of Goal Corrected Empathic Attunement Skills - New Contributions in Information Systems and Technologies - page 208

Using NVivo to Evaluate a Program of Goal Corrected
Empathic Attunement Skills:
A Case Study in the Context of Higher Education

Catarina Brandão and José Miguez

Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação, Universidade do Porto.
Rua Alfredo Allen 4200-135 Porto, Portugal
{catarina,miguez}@fpce.up.pt

Abstract. This paper focuses on the use of NVivo10 in the process of
evaluating a developmental program in Goal Corrected Emphatic Attunement
skills in the context of a course in a Psychology master's program. We present
the way the software supported our work and discuss how it enabled a process
of moving closer to and distancing ourselves from the data. We also discuss the
possibility to analyze data in different perspectives - cross sectional and
longitudinal, analyzing different groups of participants (cases) and different
years of the program as our research questions evolved.

Keywords: NVivo, Goal Corrected Emphatic Attunement, program evaluation.

1 Introduction

This paper uses the data of an ongoing research about the process of evaluating a
developmental program to demonstrate how NVivo10 [1], a Qualitative Data Analysis
Software (QDA) enabled our work. The results presented here refer to the use of
NVivo and to what it informed us about the developmental program. We begin by
presenting the program's structure and aims and how we gathered information to
understand participants' experience and evaluate the program. We also briefly reflect
on the use of QDA. Next, we explain how NVivo supported our global aim of
evaluating the program. Despite using only one type of data, there are several features
that add complexity to our research and made the use of NVivo central.

1.1 The Case

Building on the pedagogical aims of the Bologna Process [2], in 2006 the second
author structured the Practical Course of Qualitative Research , and introduced it on
the Psychology Master's program new curriculum at the Faculty of Psychology and
Educational Sciences, University of Porto. He considered the requirements set in the
law that altered the Educational System and established «the transition from an
education system based on the transmission of knowledge to a system based on the