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11. Cases

Imagine cases as a suitcase in which you collect all the information about a person, an organization, a location, an event or other entities that represent the focus of your research. You can attach your cases to classification sheets to record descriptive information about the cases in your project. So if your case is a person, perhaps you want to capture demographic information in the classification sheet such as their name, age, place of birth, favourite colour, etc.

When working on a literature review, you may want to collect all the articles written by an author together in one place, as a case.

In a review, we use cases to collect articles by the same author together and conduct analyses across all these articles at once. 

You can also compare cases to identify differences in for example the context two authors discuss a theme you have coded in the texts.

 

Create your cases

  1. View your files in the "List View".
  2. In this example, there I have an author called Salkevicius who has written two articles and I want to collect all these articles as a case.
  3. In the navigation view, scroll down to "Cases", right click and choose "New Case".
  4. Give your new case the name "Salkevicius" , and click on OK.

    The next step is to gather all the materials this author has written in their "Case". So return to the list of files.

  5. Highlight the articles you want to add to the case, right click and choose "code whole files". If a warning pops up click "Confirm".
  6. In the Select Code Items box that pops up, choose Cases and then the name of your case, in this example "Salkevicius".
  7. Click "Code selection" - you have now added the papers written by the author to the case.

You manage cases just as you would your codes. By right clicking on your case, you can merge them and rename them. You can even code the content of your project to multiple cases if you need to.

When you have set up your cases you can begin to compare how authors address themes across multiple coded texts. In the Ribbon View click on "Explore", "Diagrams" and "Compare cases" to get started.

 

Case Classifications

You can also create a case classification sheet describing attributes of your cases. Perhaps for your study it is relevant to describe the nationality, seniority and gender of your authors. The attributes you describe depend on the type of analyses you intend to do.

This is how you create a Case Classification Sheet:

  1. In the Navigation menu, scroll down to Cases and click on the arrow if necessary to view Case Classifications feature.
  2. Write click to choose "New Case Classification".
  3. The easiest option is to choose "Add one or more predefined classifications to the project" > Choose "Person".
  4. The person classification sheet includes the attributes Name, Sex,  Age group, Occupation, Country of Birth and Email. You can delete or add variables as you wish.
  5. Double click on an attribute to open up the properties. I use the Sex attribute in this example.
    1. Give your attribute a description and change the title to "Gender".
    2. Use the tab  "Values" to add gender categories relevant for your study. Click on "Add" to add one value at a time (Female, Male, Non-binary, etc).
    3. Click OK when you are done.

Repeat for all the attributes on your sheet. Delete unwanted attributes by right click > delete. 
Add new attributes, by right-click on the name of your classification sheet and choose "New Attribute"

 

Describe your cases using the classification sheet

Return to your cases.
Right click on a case and choose "Classification" and click on the name of the classification sheet you want to add the case to.
Now when you right click on your case again, choose the option "Open Classification Sheet" and you can assign the attribute values to your case.


McGill University library have made an easy to follow guide about how to work with case classifications: https://libraryguides.mcgill.ca/c.php?g=729302&p=5232375

The NVivo help pages also offer guides and inspiration in using Cases: https://help-nv.qsrinternational.com/14/win/Content/cases/cases.htm?Highlight=cases