ontreal’s Provalis Research offers a suite of data andtext analysis tools for those interested in both quanti-tative and qualitative data. It is particularly useful forthose who wish to “put numbers” to qualitative data to helpestablish frequencies and relationships. The current offeringconsists of: Simstat, a Microsoft Windows-based, full-purposestatistical package; WordStat, a content analysis and text min-ing module; and the newer (released in 2004) QDA Miner, aqualitative data analysis package. Note that WordStat is not astand-alone application; users must access it through Simstat orQDA Miner.

Simstat.

This is a statistical analysis package not unlikeSPSS for Windows, and those familiar with the latter will findthat navigation is easy and straightforward. It contains a tuto-rial to help users become familiar with the possibilities of thesoftware (and there are many), and the comprehensive manualprovides clear instructions on how to perform actions andanalyses—not just a description of what is available. This isoften sorely lacking in software manuals, forcing users to findother sources of information to work with new software, andis added value here. Users can enter data directly into Simstator import them from a variety of sources, including SPSS,Excel, and comma- or tab-delimited ASCII data. If necessary,they can easily merge data files—a handy feature if multiplepeople are entering data. Simstat provides the full range of sta-tistical offerings, from more basic cross-tabs and descriptivestatistics to factor-, bootstrap-, and time-series analysis. User-friendly descriptions of each test and the available options arepresented (users must bring their own knowledge of interpre-tation, and the software cannot guard against inappropriateuses). Users can create and edit a full range of charts (e.g., bar,pie, Pareto, histogram, box-and-whisker, scatter) followinganalysis, and transfer them to the clipboard or export them toother applications for use elsewhere.When running analyses, the notebook displays the statisticaloutput for all analyses performed during a session. For thosewho have lost their way searching for a particular data run,through page after page of logged results in a single file, one of the nicest features of the notebook is that users can add pages toit to organize output and make navigation faster and easier.Labeled tabs on pages make searching even simpler. Blank pagescan be added to the notebook, allowing users to include theanalysis plan, make comments, and outline next steps if desired.Simstat also enables users to save analysis specificationswith a script feature. The script automatically keeps track of what was done in a session, and users can save this for later.This is extremely helpful when someone frequently uses ananalysis, or when the analysis is complex and would be time-consuming to recreate with the Windows point-and-clickmethod. Descriptions of the commands/syntax conventionsand examples of scripts help less-familiar users.

WordStat.

This is an add-on module for studying textualinformation such as responses to open-ended questions andinterviews, articles, speeches, and other communications. Itspower is that it allows for automatic categorization of textwith a dictionary approach (after some user setup). For thosewho have ever needed to find themes or relationships in verba-tim responses, focus group transcripts, or other text sources,WordStat is very attractive indeed. Although getting startedmight take a while, both in formatting the text to be analyzedand setting up the dictionary, the results make it worthwhile.To get full value from WordStat’s capabilities, users mustinvest time in customizing and maintaining the appropriatedictionaries—for categorization and exclusion. They mustpopulate the inclusion dictionary with the categories underconsideration, all of the words and technical terms to beincluded in the category, and so on. The advantage is that thisis a subject-specific word list, and users can save it, reuse it,

marketing

research

For those who have ever needed to findthemes or relationships in verbatim responses,focus group transcripts,or other text sources,WordStat is very attractive indeed.

Exhibit 1

Heat plot

Power Tools

Code,analyze,and illustrate data with the Provalis Research suite.

By Deborah Bobier

software review

Spring

2006

and modify it. They can also append words and categoriesinto other dictionaries, which makes establishing subsequentdictionaries more efficient.WordStat offers tools to help users compile dictionaries.For example, they can look at simple word frequencies of allthe words contained in the data, automatically generated byWordStat. They can also look at the words not contained inthe inclusion dictionary, to make sure important wordshaven’t been overlooked. The phrase finder looks at idioms,phrases, and expressions throughout the text, which otherwisemight be missed. WordStat also will suggest synonyms for theexisting words in users’ categories, which can enhance the dic-tionary. The keyword-in-context page allows users to see—inone table—all occurrences of a word or category in the origi-nal text. Users then can sort these instances to look for simi-larities or differences in word usage, as well as inconsistenciesin word meanings. Any discrepancies in usage can then beaddressed by refining the dictionary.Users also can create rules to specify under which conditions aword or category should be coded. If specified properly, this canreduce ambiguity when words have multiple meanings, becausethe different meanings can be clearly defined. An exclusion dic-tionary specifies which words should not be included in the anal-ysis. It comes already populated, and can be edited by users.Once the dictionaries have been set up, users must preparetheir data files and documents for import into the program.(All text must be in raw text, or ASCII, format.) WordStatsearches for specific spellings; therefore users should checktext before beginning analysis, to ensure that words aren’tmissed (Provalis supports English, French, Spanish, and sev-eral other languages). Other formatting issues will also need tobe addressed. WordStat generally treats hyphenated words asseparate words, and uses brackets and braces as specific mark-ers, so users need to remove these symbols or replace themwith other symbols. Lemmatization is also used: treating wordstems, singular and plural, and tense forms as one word. Userscan adjust these rules for the dictionary.Now the fun begins. Users can cross-tab categories andwords with other categorical variables of interest to uncoverpatterns in the data, and it is easy to switch between the cross-tabs and the keywords in context page to get additional insight.Anyone interested in some of the more powerful ways to depictrelationships between categories and categorical variables willenjoy the heat plots, which show relative correlation betweenwords or categories using a color spectrum. WordStat offersmultiple spectra to suit various tastes.Users can easily create dendograms (tree graphs) to displayhierarchical clusterings of categories. Correspondence mapscan be used to illustrate the likelihood that items—categoriesand variables—will appear together. This can be shown intwo-dimensional and three-dimensional maps, and gives asnapshot of similarities between items. If this isn’t enough forthe average user, then multivariate statistics also are available.

QDA Miner.

This is designed for use with already coded data,or for coding text data. QDA Miner and WordStat possess manysimilarities, and the two can work together for enhanced capa-bility. For instance, the word- and phrase-finder functions of WordStat can identify items that might be included in the codebook, and QDA Miner also offers heat maps, dendograms, andcorrespondence maps. The manual provides easy instructions forrunning these analyses, and detailed explanations of the output.QDA Miner presents a straightforward way to manuallycode text. Users select the text to be coded and click thedesired code, and a code mark appears in the right margin.Code marks appear as the “name” of the code and a coloredbracket, to show the physical limits of the coded segment.Users can code sections within segments multiple times, withadditional code marks appearing in the right margin, and eas-ily add or remove code marks as needed. A nice feature is thatthey can add comments to coded text by clicking the codemark; these appear as a small yellow square in the middle of the code bracket.Some of the package’s other highly useful functions are themultiuser possibilities, and the ability to merge files or projectswhen coding is performed on different computers—or in dif-ferent files by different team members. Creating project back-ups is simple using an archiving procedure. Users should dothis regularly, so they can recover lost variables or go back toearlier versions.Separately or together, Provalis’ statistical and text analysissoftware packages provide basic and higher-level tools for coding,analyzing, and illustrating data. Users looking for only a basicstatistics package might find Simstat somewhat overwhelming;however, it is easy to use, and help is available with the tutorialand user’s manual. WordStat and QDA Miner will allowresearchers to fully investigate textual information and althoughstartup may be time consuming, the end result is well worth it.Those interested can download demonstrations from thecompany’s Web site (www.provalisresearch.com). They canalso order products there. Current prices are $355 for Simstat,$595 for QDA Miner, and $1,150 for WordStat.

Deborah Bobier

is an account executive at Millward Brown inToronto. She may be reached at deborah.bobier@ca.millward-brown.com.

Exhibit 2

Code mark example