NVivo Qualitative Evaluation Analysis Training Course

Course overview

Development and humanitarian teams collect large volumes of interview transcripts, focus-group notes, community feedback, case studies, monitoring visit reports and open-ended survey responses. Yet evaluation findings are often delayed, coded inconsistently or presented as anecdotal because analysts lack a disciplined process for managing and interrogating qualitative evidence. This course equips participants to use NVivo to build an auditable evidence base for programme evaluations, learning reviews, needs assessments and accountability studies.

Participants learn how to structure an NVivo project, import and prepare mixed qualitative data, create a codebook aligned to evaluation questions and OECD DAC criteria, and apply consistent coding across sources. They will use cases, classifications, attributes, memos, framework matrices, coding queries and matrix coding queries to compare perspectives by location, gender, participant group, intervention exposure or implementation period. The course also covers quality assurance, intercoder agreement, negative-case analysis, visualisations and the translation of coded evidence into defensible evaluation findings.

Teaching combines instructor demonstrations with guided NVivo labs using a realistic humanitarian programme evaluation dataset. Each participant progressively builds a working NVivo project containing structured source folders, cases, classifications, a documented coding framework, coded evidence, query outputs and draft findings tables. By the final day, participants produce a practical qualitative analysis plan and a reporting pack that can be adapted for an active or forthcoming evaluation.

The course is designed for monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning professionals, researchers and programme staff who need to analyse qualitative evidence rather than simply store it. It is equally relevant to managers commissioning evaluations who need clearer audit trails, more credible synthesis and timely insight from field evidence.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Configure an NVivo project structure for evaluation sources, cases, folders and audit documentation
• Build a hierarchical codebook linked to evaluation questions, indicators and OECD DAC criteria
• Import and prepare interview transcripts, focus-group notes, survey comments and field reports for analysis
• Create case classifications and attributes to compare evidence across participant and programme groups
• Apply consistent manual coding, in vivo coding and coding stripes to qualitative evaluation data
• Run text search, coding and matrix coding queries to test patterns across cases and attributes
• Assess coding quality through memoing, codebook review, intercoder comparison and negative-case checks
• Produce an NVivo-based findings matrix, evidence extracts and analysis plan for an evaluation report

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning Officers — who must turn field evidence into credible programme findings
• Evaluation Consultants — who need a transparent workflow for analysing interviews, focus groups and document reviews
• Humanitarian Programme Managers — who commission evaluations and need to interrogate beneficiary and implementation evidence
• Research Officers — who analyse qualitative data for needs assessments, baseline studies and learning reviews
• Accountability to Affected Populations Specialists — who need to synthesise community feedback by group, issue and location
• Donor Reporting and Grants Managers — who need stronger qualitative substantiation for results narratives and lessons learned

Requirements and prerequisites

This is a foundation-to-intermediate course and does not require previous NVivo experience. Participants should be comfortable using a Windows or Mac computer, working with Word documents and spreadsheets, and reading interview transcripts or narrative monitoring reports. Familiarity with basic monitoring and evaluation concepts—such as evaluation questions, indicators, sampling, triangulation and qualitative data collection—is helpful because exercises use these concepts directly. Participants should bring a laptop on which they can install or access the current NVivo application; a trial or organisational licence is acceptable. Statistical software, coding experience, programming knowledge and advanced research-methods training are not required.

Training methodology

The five days alternate short instructor-led demonstrations with individual NVivo lab work on a realistic humanitarian evaluation dataset. Participants import transcripts, reports and survey comments; construct and test a codebook; classify cases; and run queries that compare evidence across locations and participant groups. Facilitated group reviews examine coding differences, interpretation risks and the distinction between quotes and findings. Each day closes with a practical output, culminating in an end-of-course application plan that maps participants' own evaluation questions, sources, coding approach and reporting products.

Course outline

Day 1: Setting up qualitative evaluation analysis in NVivo

• Qualitative evidence in development and humanitarian evaluation
• Evaluation questions, theory of change and analytical framework alignment
• NVivo interface, navigation pane and project properties
• Source folders, naming conventions and version-control principles
• Importing Word transcripts, PDFs, spreadsheets and survey comments
• Source preparation, transcription checks and document metadata
• Memos, annotations and links for maintaining an evaluation audit trail

Workshop: Participants create an NVivo project for a humanitarian programme evaluation and import, organise and document a supplied evidence set.

Day 2: Building and applying an evaluation codebook

• Deductive, inductive and hybrid coding approaches
• Codebook design from evaluation questions and OECD DAC criteria
• Parent nodes, child nodes and mutually distinct code definitions
• In vivo coding, descriptive coding and interpretive coding
• Coding transcript passages, report excerpts and survey comments
• Coding stripes, highlighting and source-context review
• Codebook memos, inclusion rules and exclusion rules

Workshop: Participants develop a hierarchical codebook and independently code selected interview and focus-group extracts before comparing decisions.

Day 3: Comparing participant groups and programme contexts

• Cases as units of analysis for people, groups, sites and organisations
• Case classifications and attribute-value design
• Creating demographic, geographic and intervention-exposure attributes
• Classifying sources and cases from spreadsheet data
• Framework matrices for structured case-by-theme synthesis
• Cross-case comparison by gender, location and stakeholder type
• Protecting confidentiality through de-identification and access controls

Workshop: Participants create beneficiary and site cases, apply attributes and build a framework matrix comparing service-access experiences.

Day 4: Querying evidence and assuring analytical quality

• Text search queries for terminology, concepts and local language variants
• Coding queries for intersections, exclusions and co-occurring themes
• Matrix coding queries by case classification and attribute
• Word frequency queries and stop-word review
• Charts, hierarchy charts and comparison visualisations
• Intercoder comparison queries and coding-consistency review
• Negative-case analysis, triangulation and rival explanations

Workshop: Participants run a matrix coding query on perceived programme benefits and produce an evidence table identifying convergent and divergent findings.

Day 5: From coded data to defensible evaluation findings

• Distinguishing coded themes, findings, conclusions and recommendations
• Synthesising evidence against evaluation questions
• Writing finding statements with source-linked supporting evidence
• Using framework matrices and query outputs in evaluation reporting
• Exporting coded extracts, node summaries and visualisations
• Quality assurance checklist for qualitative evaluation deliverables
• NVivo analysis plan, team roles and handover procedures

Workshop: Participants assemble a findings matrix and a tailored NVivo analysis plan for an upcoming or simulated evaluation, then receive peer and instructor feedback.

Tools & standards covered

NVivo, Microsoft Excel, KoboToolbox, OECD DAC Evaluation Criteria

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions