Use of
folders, cases & sets in NVivo
Folders, cases and sets can all be used to group sources
together to allow subsets of the data to be compared but
these three tools have different strengths.
Folders
Folders are created by right clicking in the relevant
source folder in the navigation view. Each source can only
be in one folder and the names of the folders affect the
ordering of references in a node.
Folders are used to:
• help to manage large quantity of sources
• make it easy to select a group of sources for
analysis
Example use: separate folder for each site for a large
study across 3 sites
Sets
Sets are created by right clicking on a selected group of
documents. Each source can be in multiple sets.
Sets are used to:
• group sources for analysis or management
• select sources for analysis
• make a single row/column in matrices
Example uses: set for each phase of interviews in a
longitudinal study, set of sources that require coding
Cases & attributes
Cases are created by coding all text relating to a case to
a case node. A case is the smallest unit of analysis (and
may be a single source, parts of a source or several
sources). Frequently a case will be an individual person.
Cases may be counted in matrix queries.
Attributes record characteristics of cases. Each case can
have a single value for an attribute. Although attributes
normally record quantitative data about a case, they can be
used to record qualitative data about a whole case.
Attributes are used to:
• in queries
• select cases for a set
Example uses: one case for all of the interviews with a
single person, one case for all the text spoken by a single
person in a focus group.
Example attributes: gender, role, organisation