Timothy C. Gutterman from the University of Michigan spoke at MAXDAYS 2025 on “Practical Applications of MAXQDA to Health Services Research.” They started by describing a mixed methods study. This study surveyed physicians in family care to learn about virtual care. This group of physicians worked with diverse populations of patients. Gutterman used MAXQDA to review interview transcripts from physician. The team had a code book that was detailed and applied this to the interview transcripts. Gutterman is interested in co-occurrence of codes and demonstrated how easy it is to perform this analysis with MAXQDA. The Code Matrix Browser and other tools allow for visualization of codes and quick access to segments. Gutterman also demonstrated how they can activate one code at a time to review frequency and distribution. Gutterman follows Thematic Analysis beginning with:
- Retrieving data
- Coding
- Developing codebook
- Examining patterns
- Generating themes
- Revising themes
Gutterman did note that the process does not need to be sequential. Gutterman uses code memos for each code to write a definition. For coding, they begin with open coding. Team members code two transcripts independently creating codes and defining them using memos. The codes are applied to transcripts. The team meets to review coded transcripts line-by-line and reconciles discrepancies to create a final transcript. Gutterman had suggestions for developing the codebook: they suggest defining with a code memo each code, merging codes into a single notebook, and reviewing consistency. Gutterman checks for consistency in ~20% of transcripts. They use Team Cloud to divide coding and merge work. Gutterman suggests examining patterns and writing memos. Next, codes are grouped, and major takeaways are documented. Themes are revised with input from the larger team.
