Here are some ideas:
There is a large variety of qualitative research software out there.
You could get a sense about most of them from
http://gopher.ulb.ac.be/~ncarpent/soft/soft_softsites.html
I use The Ethnograph for some research projects, and operationally to
help run my longitudinal family medicine course for third year
students. http://www.qualisresearch.com/ It is very intuitive and
easy to get up and running with. A bit pricey at $295 for a
single-user license, although still one of the least expensive
commercial products for this purpose.
Many of the software vendors will provide demo versions. Some of
them are limited in file size/number rather than in time, so they
might be useful for what you describe, which I bet doesn't generate a
whole lot of text.
AnSWR from the CDC is free. It is very powerful, and networkable,
and it would certainly do the job for your residents. But it is
probably overkill--using a sledgehammer to drive a nail. The
learning curve (for me anyway) was also much steeper.
If the fieldnotes that they collect could be conceived of as
open-ended answers to semi-structured questions, then EZ-Text from
the CDC would be great. Also free, and extremely easy to use.
There is freeware called "The Literary Machine," designed to help
authors outline and write novels. I haven't played with it much, but
I think it has some potential for organizing field notes. You could
plug the name into any search engine.
A final option would be a freeware note-keeping application such as
Keynote or Notekeeper. Basically a hierarchical tree outline for
taking notes. Not as elegant as true qualitative research software,
but might do the job, and at the right price. Plug those names into
a search engine too.
--
Christopher W. Ryan, MD
SUNY Upstate Medical University
Clinical Campus at Binghamton
and Wilson Family Practice Residency
40 Arch Street, Johnson City, NY 13790
"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood,
divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the
vast and endless sea." [Antoine de St. Exupery]
My two favorite "how to" texts, written for undergraduate students, for interview and observation
data are:
Spradley, James. The Ethnographic Interview. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. 1979
Spradley, James. Participant Observation. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. 1980.
Kathleen Culhane-Pera kathiecp@YAHOO.COM
there is a brief section in Doing Qualitative Research, 2n ed CRabtree and Miller p 58-69 under participant observation
"Reust, Carin E." ReustC@HEALTH.MISSOURI.EDU
A couple of further suggestionsL:
Michael Agar. The Professional Stranger: An Informal Introduction to Ethnography. Academic Press, 1996.
Stephen Schensul, Jean Schensul, and Margaret Lecompte. Essential Ethnographic Methods. Altamira Press, 1999.
I vaguely remember articles (?) by Robert Like MD and by a Dr. Hoenig or Koenig (?) in the journal Family Medicine several years ago.
Howard Stein
"Stein, Howard F." Howard-Stein@OUHSC.EDU