NVivo strengthens qualitative research into improving education for Indonesia’s 50 million-plus students

Dr Agustinus Bandur uses NVivo to improve the quality of education in Indonesia.

One of the driving influences behind improving the quality of education across Indonesia’s schools and higher education institutions is Dr Agustinus Bandur. A senior lecturer and strategic research & partnership leader at BINUS University in Jakarta, Dr Bandur has spent more than 15 years researching how to improve leadership and management in education across Indonesia. Dr Bandur also consults to several not-for-profit organizations, including the Florenza Children Resources Center, which he founded in 2008 to help children improve their learning.

Improving education in Indonesia

For Dr Bandur, the issue of improving Indonesia’s education system is compounded by its sheer size and diversity.

With more than 50 million students and 2.6 million teachers in more than 250,000 schools, it is the fourth largest education system in the world, behind only China, India and the United States.

While Indonesia has made major progress in improving its primary and secondary education, serious issues remain around the drop-out rates of students. According to the 2016 National Socio-Economic Survey, around one million children between 7 – 15 years old are not attending primary or junior secondary school. Meanwhile, another 3.6 million adolescents aged 16 to 18 are out of school. There are also concerns around the quality of learning at Indonesian schools. According to UNICEF, only 81% of primary school teachers hold the minimum qualifications required by government.

The role of research

Dr Bandur’s research has been central to discussions around school-based management (SBM) policy reform in Indonesia, which saw education decentralize and shift responsibility to schools in 2005 in an effort to improve management within the education sector. In response to higher education globalization in Indonesian universities, Dr Bandur has also focused his research on higher education internationalization.

While Dr Bandur has plenty of passion for improving Indonesia’s education management and leadership, what he doesn’t have is a lot of time. With so many projects, educational institutions and not-for-profit organizations are relying on his research insights, Dr Bandur realised early on that he needed a faster, more efficient way of collecting, managing and analyzing his research data.

In 2002, Dr Bandur began using NVivo, software designed to support qualitative data analysis. Since then, Dr Bandur relies on it almost every day for his research needs, from conducting literature reviews to content analysis of various sources, thematic and cross-case analysis, as well as mixed-methods research. He also uses NVivo to ensure his articles and books are based on authentic, evidence-based data.

How NVivo Helps

NVivo is the number one software chosen by academics around the world for presenting the most robust, defensible findings from qualitative research. According to Dr Bandur, NVivo saves him significant time and
effort, particularly with queries for content analysis, cluster analysis and visualizing themes, as well as with transcribing data.

NVivo saves time with transcribing

“For any qualitative research, transcribing is tiring,” said Dr Bandur. “Prior to learning about NVivo, I would have to listen to interviews in Windows Media Player and transcribe them into Microsoft Word. It meant having two programs opened at the same time, which took time to use and control. In NVivo, I can hear, see and manage my recorded data much more effectively and efficiently. It is also fascinating with NVivo to capture and transcribe secondary data from YouTube videos prior to conducting primary data collection in the field.”

NVivo identifies themes from hundreds of papers

“Another advantage of NVivo is that I do not have to read all the references to make sense of the data. Instead, with the query system in NVivo, I can search the main theme, word or topic that I am analyzing, saving me from having to skim through hundreds of papers and potentially miss important information. NVivo is also a perfect tool for me as it integrates my papers managed in Mendeley.”

NVivo adds credibility to research through the triangulation technique

“Finally, NVivo adds credibility to my research. It allows me to quickly create project mappings, analyze the attributes and perform cross-case analysis. The triangulation technique – combining data from different sources such as interviews, focus groups and photos – is something I use frequently to improve the strength of my findings. I also find team research helps. With NVivo, my research team can work on the same project, allowing us to conduct inter-rater analysis to measure reliability.”

Best practice research results in greater student achievements

According to Dr Bandur’s research, there is evidence that the implementation of the SBM policy has resulted in improving teaching learning environments and student achievements. He continues to study its effects and train others – along with advocating NVivo as a best practice way to collect, manage and analyze data. “The NGOs I work with, including Wahana Visi Indonesia, SMERU Research Institute and Perkumpulan Prakarsa are all now using NVivo. My Doctoral and Master’s students have also applied NVivo in their Doctoral dissertations and Master’s theses. I strongly recommend NVivo to students, scholars and research because it is a powerful tool for the purposes of conducting content, thematic, and cross-case analyses in qualitative research.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

QSR International with Dr Agustinus Bandur

Dr Agustinus Bandur PhD, is a senior lecturer and strategic research & partnership leader at BINUS University in Jakarta. Dr Bandur has spent more than 15 years researching how to improve leadership and management in education across Indonesia. Every day, QSR International helps 1.5 million researchers, marketers and others to utilize Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) to uncover deeper insights contained within the “human data” collected via social media, consumer and community feedback and other means. We give people the power to make better decisions by uncovering more insights to advance their area of exploration.

From journalism to research and evaluation: a research journey

Dr. Anupama Shekar shares her story of following her passion for ensuring equitable access to quality education, no matter a child’s economic circumstance, and how it took her from a career in journalism in India, to post-doctoral research in the U.S. Her work has featured a long history of working with qualitative research and evaluation tools, including NVivo.

Introduction

Dr. Anupama Shekar, PhD, is a qualitative researcher and program evaluator with a passion for the field of educational research and evaluation. She is currently an Evaluation Consultant with the Center on Research and Evaluation at the Simmons School of Education and Human Development at the Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas. Her prior experience includes working as the Director for Evaluation at Teaching Trust in Dallas, Texas, an education leadership non-profit organization. She also worked as an associate researcher, and prior to that a post-doctoral research associate with WIDA which is a national and international prek-12 language development and assessment program housed at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Before undertaking her postdoctoral work, she earned her PhD at the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She also assisted in the development and evaluation of WIDA’s data literacy program known as LADDER for English language learners. Funded by the US Department of Education's Office of English Language Acquisition, this project essentially helped participating schools make data-driven decisions about English language learners.

Prior to coming to the U.S., Anupama received her Master's degree in journalism at the Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communication and worked as a print journalist for the New Indian Express, a national mainstream newspaper in Tamil Nadu, Southern India. In her role as a print journalist, she focused on public educational leadership and policy issues in South India, where her journey in education began. The school leaders she met served children from low-income families. They greatly impacted her and she was inspired to leave journalism and study educational leadership and policy.

A journey in education leadership and policy research

Anupama recalls why she felt compelled to change careers. “It was the initial encounter that I had with several children from low-income communities,” she said. “They really awakened my interest in studying education leadership and policy formally and improving the public school system in India.”

“Many years later, the first story I wrote for The New Indian Express in 2006, still remains on my desk, “ she said. “It continues to keep me focused on why I began this journey and the importance of working to improve the lives of children from low-income communities anywhere in the world.”

A 14-year-old girl said that she had to work to feed her mother and brothers, and could not go to school. That really stuck with Anupama. Although education is a fundamental right of children under the Indian constitution, thousands of underprivileged children still have no real access to a school or quality education. “At that point I started developing an interest in research and evaluation in education leadership. I wanted to study successful school leadership practices and leaders who advocate for children from low-income groups despite the odds,” Anupama said.

It was when Anupama’s doctorate studies and WIDA work began that NVivo came into the picture. Her professors and other researchers used it, and her own research involved writing up case studies of school leaders in public schools in Tamil Nadu, Southern India. Previous research in the U.S. had examined the contribution of parent involvement in children's educational outcomes, but very little was focused on the role of school principals in fostering parent, family and community involvement practices.

Her analysis of previous research led her to design an exploratory, qualitative, cross-case study and informed her research questions: how do public school leaders in Tamil Nadu foster parent and family involvement? And what are the similarities and differences across schools?

“I used NVivo 9 to explore the initial transcriptions of interviews, contextual observations and field notes. It gave me an initial understanding of all the data and how the school heads initiated and supported parent involvement practices at their schools,” said Anupama.

While NVivo helped gain an initial understanding of the themes in her data, Anupama also used a traditional and manual coding process while interrogating her qualitative data to unpack the complexities in her qualitative case studies.

“Manual coding helped me analyze the story of each headmaster and headmistress and see patterns. I needed to get close to the data to figure out the leaders actions more deeply,” she said. “I also used memos, and documents, and artifacts. I sort of let the curiosities as a researcher take over. I feel moving between manual and software coding really helped me with my dissertation analyses and to triangulate my own thinking and findings,” said Anupama.

She notes how innovative uses of qualitative data helped her accomplish a richer understanding of experiences in the case studies. “The main study findings were that the school heads’ over time created a continuum of overlapping actions that helped foster effective parent involvement. I was really able to get to the core of the school heads’ actions through usage of multiple analyses techniques and constant reflection on the qualitative data. As a qualitative researcher, you really commit to spending extended periods of time to get to the heart of the story” Anupama said.

During her work at WIDA during her doctorate studies, the WIDA’s LADDER project convened many focus groups, as well as individual interviews and mixed methods evaluation. “Each year we produced a program evaluation report and wrote up findings, so NVivo was useful as one of the tools that helped us identify themes and patterns,” said Anupama. “WIDA still offers the LADDER program, and I was there when they were developing the whole program from the ground up,” she said.

When Anupama moved onto her postdoctoral work, WIDA’s Teaching and Learning team were trying to understand best practices in professional learning and professional development. One large project involved multiple qualitative open-ended questions. Anupama found her prior experience helpful. “NVivo was a great tool for me to use then because we were working with a lot of diverse data and it ended up providing great insights,” she said.

Most recently she worked as the Director of Evaluation with Teaching Trust, an educational leadership non-profit in Dallas. Teaching Trust offers high quality training and support for future school leaders, school leadership teams, and teacher leaders to ensure that children in low-income schools across Texas have access to an excellent education.

“Teaching Trust has a strong alumni base and educators who graduated from Teaching Trust programs are out in the field driving positive change for students,” said Anupama. “The Teaching Trust Alumni Network team always gathered and used data effectively to drive their programmatic decisions. In this case, the team was trying to understand through qualitative data, the impact of the Teaching Trust alumni programming from the participant's point of view and how future programming might be improved and changed,” she said.

The Alumni Network team conducted qualitative focus groups of current and former participants. “After every focus group, our team met to extract meaning from the data — the impacts of Teaching Trust programming on participants, personal leadership, student and school outcomes, and what it really meant to be part of the Teaching Trust community,” said Anupama.

The team used both manual and software coding techniques with their qualitative data. “We took a grounded theory approach by listening and gathering data, and bridging perspectives to really unpack the themes and patterns” said Anupama.

“My former colleagues used pen and paper, and I used NVivo to code,” Anupama said. “There is a lot of power in combining multiple qualitative coding techniques because that adds to the validity and reduces researcher isolation. We presented the lessons learned and techniques on the collaborative qualitative approach in a webinar to the American Evaluation Association.” she said.

A passion for qualitative insights

Anupama’s career has evolved through her interest and passion for educational research and evaluation and ensuring people have equitable access to quality education, no matter their background or economic circumstance. Her appreciation for the importance of qualitative research and evaluation has been at the heart of her work.

“Qualitative data tells you something that numbers cannot, and helps you dig deeper to explore the complexities and find powerful insights,” she said. “As a qualitative researcher and evaluator, my challenge has been to find meaning in data, to keep asking why, and to continue digging,” said Anupama.

Anupama also hopes to continue sharing the power of qualitative research and evaluation through her website and blog in the near future. “There is a renewed energy in qualitative research and evaluation that is really exciting. There are people around the world who use qualitative data in very different ways in their work. I think it will be valuable to hear and share their stories as continual learning is the core of qualitative work.”

Next steps in career

Anupama hopes to use her learnings in qualitative research and evaluation at her current work at the Center on Research and Evaluation (CORE) at the Simmons School of Education and Human Development at the Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas.

“I am excited to be doing projects for CORE and collaborating with their diverse and strong team of researchers and evaluators led by Dr. Annie Wright. They are at the forefront of conducting rigorous research and evaluation that focuses on examining critical issues around children, families and communities.

CORE is constantly striving to push boundaries and was selected as one of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s expert evaluators nationwide. This shows the focus CORE has on issues around diversity, equity and social justice. I am honored to be learning as a researcher and evaluator with this incredible organization.”

You can follow CORE’s work on Facebook and Twitter.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

QSR International with Dr Anupama Shekar

Dr. Anupama Shekar, PhD, is a qualitative researcher and program evaluator with a passion for the field of educational research and evaluation. She is currently an Evaluation Consultant with the Center on Research and Evaluation at the Simmons School of Education and Human Development at the Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas. Her prior experience includes working as the Director for Evaluation at Teaching Trust in Dallas, Texas, an education leadership non-profit organization. Every day, QSR International helps 1.5 million researchers, marketers and others to utilize Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) to uncover deeper insights contained within the “human data” collected via social media, consumer and community feedback and other means. We give people the power to make better decisions by uncovering more insights to advance their area of exploration.