Creating research reports with ATLAS.ti Web

Research report creation with ATLAS.ti Web

ATLAS.ti Web has a brand-new section dedicated to generating and exporting reports. Now you can visually explore the frequencies of your codes and how they are distributed throughout your documents. In other words, once you have coded your data, you can query and retrieve your results in the new reports page. Code distribution reports show how many data quotations are associated with each code, and the code-document table displays frequencies of codes across documents. Thus, you can use code distribution reports to explore how the data linked to each code, and you can use code-document tables to examine where in your data the different codes are appearing.

Access the reports page by clicking on the reports icon in the left-hand toolbar (see Figure 1). Then, click on “+ Create report” to create a new report.

Code distribution reports

You can choose whether you would like to create a code distribution chart or a code-document table. A code distribution chart displays all the codes in descending order of their frequency (i.e., the codes with the most associated quotations appear first; see Figure 2). Below the chart, you can see all of the data quotations. By clicking on any code in the chart, ATLAS.ti Web will filter the quotations below to only show quotations that are associated to your selected code(s). You can also toggle the chart view by clicking on the button along the time (i.e., you can open and close the chart view).

A powerful way to query your data is to apply filter rules (see Figure 3). Click on “Filter Quotations” button, and you then select which information you want to filter your quotations by. You can filter by the content of quotations (e.g., the text a quotation contains), by document name (e.g., quotations that come from a particular document), by document group (e.g., quotations that come from documents in a particular group), by code (e.g., quotations associated to a particular code), by code group (e.g., quotations that are associated with codes from a particular group), by comment (e.g., the content of a quotation’s comment), and by creator (e.g., which team member created the quotations).

You can add as many filter rules as you would like. For example, if we wanted to see what executive leaders thought about the benefits of using a web-based software, we could set the filters for the document group that contains all data coming from executive leaders and another filter for the code group that contains all the codes about benefits of using a web-based software (see Figure 4).

You can also edit the name and comment of this chart view by clicking on the “information” button along the top (see Figure 5). A great benefit of ATLAS.ti Cloud’s reports is that you can save multiple chart views to capture different queries. Thus, you could save a report view for each research question you may be interested in, and these saved report views will automatically update as you continue coding your data. The comment space of the report view offers a perfect space to note down your research question (or the purpose for which you created this report view).

You can save the report to your computer by clicking on the “Download” button. This will generate an Excel spreadsheet of the data quotations, their associated codes and comments, and the document from which each quotation comes.

Code-document table

In addition to examining code distributions, you can construct code-document tables to explore code frequencies across your documents (see Figure 6). In other words, the code-document table lets you see where in your project the different codes are being used.

From the code-document table, you can add codes, code groups, documents, and/or document groups. For example, if we wanted to compare which benefits were mentioned by male and female participants, we could select the individual codes on benefits. Then, we can select the document groups for male and female participants (see Figure 7).

The code-document table then shows how many times each code was used across all the data from male and female participants, providing a helpful global overview and permitting comparisons across the data. With this tool, you can construct tables that show the frequencies of your codes and/or code groups, so you can see how many times a certain code (or code group) was used in a particular document (or document group).

Wrapping up

The new reports tools in ATLAS.ti Web permit more fine-tuned examinations of your coded data so that you can query your findings and build rigorous insights. You can save as many reports as you would like in ATLAS.ti Web, and these interactive reports will keep updating as you continue your analysis. Therefore, you can save different reports for each of your research interests and objectives, and you can easily revisit and download these reports as your analysis develops and evolves. Part of the great power of ATLAS.ti resides in its capabilities to make querying and retrieving findings comfortable and easy, so that you can build the unique contributions of your research and share your findings with the rest of the world.