Philosophy and Mission

qdap is born out of a frustration with current discourse analysis programs. Packaged programs are a closed system, meaning the researcher using the method has little, if any, influence on the program applied to his data.

**R already has thousands of excellent packages for statistics and visualization. qdap is designed to stand as a bridge between the qualitative discourse of a transcript and the computational power and freedom that R offers. **

The qdap package is born as a means of providing researchers with the tools to analyze data and more importantly as a dynamic system governed by the data, shaped by theory and continuously refined by the field.