Contributions and Limits to the Use of Softwares to Support Content Analysis

Abstract

The use of software to support qualitative analysis has been growing since the 1980s when the first software began to be developed through collaborative research by researchers. There are still recurrent discussions about the contributions and limits of the use of these resources in qualitative analyzes. Considering this perspective, this work aims to analyze the contributions and limitations of the use of content analysis software, in order to support the researcher in his decision making when opting for the use of software resources. Several contributions are identified, such as the possibility of treatment and retrieval of a large volume of qualitative data, allowing a greater time of interpretative analysis to the researcher. As a more frequent limitation, we present the absence of contextual analysis of the units of study: words. Thus, the active role of the researcher remains indispensable in view of the fact that the software proposes a support for the mechanical activity of content analysis, but the creation of valid scientific knowledge requires the rationality of the researcher from the interpretation of the data against pertinent theorization.