Create case classifications

Case classifications let you store demographic information about the 'units of analysis' in your project.

For example, you could create cases for your interview participants, assign these cases to a classification called Person, and record values for Age, Gender, Level of Education and Occupation.

Person classification with attributes for Age, Gender, Level of Education and Occupation.

After you have done some coding, you can make comparisons based on these demographic attributes—for example, are there differences between how men and women respond to a particular issue? Crosstab query

Before you can setup the demographic data for your cases, you need to add one or more classifications to your project.

How many case classifications do I need?

You can create whatever classifications you need to support your analysis.

For example, your study may involve interviewing Students and Teachers (two groups with different sets of attributes). In this case, you could create two classifications:

Different classifications for students and teachers displayed in List View.

Your project may involve comparing organizations, sites, places or other types of cases. You can create classifications to support the comparisons you want to make.

Add a predefined case classification to your project

NVivo provides two predefined case classifications—Person and Organization. To add these to your project:

  1. On the Create tab, in the Classifications group, click Case Classification.
  2. Select Add one or more predefined classifications to the project.
  3. Select the check boxes for classifications you want to add.
  4. Click OK.
  5. Classify your cases.

NOTE  You can customize the new classification to suit your requirements, by adding or removing attributes and attribute values. Manage classifications

Create a case classification and add attributes

  1. In Navigation View, right-click on Case Classifications, and then click New Classification.
  2. Enter the name of the classification—for example, Participant, Place or Site.
  3. Click OK.
  4. In List View, right-click on the new classification and click New Attribute.
  5. Enter a name for the attribute. For example Age or Occupation.
  6. For Type, select the data type of the attribute values. For example. Age is an integer and Occupation is text.
  7. Click the Values tab (at the top of the dialog) and click Add to create each attribute value. You can also add the values later in List View or in the classification sheet.

You can now assign cases to the new classification and define the attribute values for each case.

Classify cases from values in a survey or dataset

When you import responses from SurveyMonkey or Qualtrics, or import data from spreadsheets or text files—the Survey Import Wizard automatically creates and classifies cases for each respondent in a survey, and assigns attribute values based on the classifying fields in the dataset. Approaches to analyzing survey results

Import case classifications from another NVivo project

You can also create classifications by importing the classification and attribute structures from another NVivo project (without importing the attribute values associated with cases). Merge projects or import items from another project

Create case classifications from datasets containing social media data

When you auto code a dataset containing social media data (imported from NCapture files) and choose to code by Username, NVivo creates cases with the classification 'Facebook User', 'Twitter User, or 'YouTube User'. Information from the user's profile is stored as attribute values for each code. Automatic coding in datasets