Teaching · For Teachers

Quotes, paraphrases and your own thoughts, never mixed up.

Log each note with its time, label it as a quote, a paraphrase, an observation or your own reflection, and add a tentative code. Right after the interview, write the context and a reflexive memo. The summary tallies the codes and gathers the quotes, and flags what to fix while memory is fresh.

Start field notesWhat you get
$12one-time · every device you sign in on
Buy · $12

Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the For Teachers toolkit, $79 for 72 items.

The field notes

One record per interview, with participants identified by code only. The example is made up.

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What you get

Teaching · For Teachers$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with
For each interview, the context, consent and recording status, labeled time-stamped notes with tentative codes, and a reflexive memo, with code counts and the quotes gathered.
Who it is for
Teacher researchers, graduate students in education and program evaluators running qualitative interviews.
Format
Browser notes with a running table. Several saved records; printed with the summary or as a blank notes sheet; CSV of the notes table for coding software or a spreadsheet; export and import a file.
Access
$12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the For Teachers toolkit ($79) and the Teaching Suite pass ($199), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The For Teachers space in Caveat Teaching.
Support
Questions about an order, access or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.
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Drawn for this page. Quote, paraphrase, observation or your own thought: label each note as you write it, and the analysis starts cleaner.

How to use it

  1. Start a record with an interview code and the date.
  2. Enter the participant code, role, setting, consent and recording status.
  3. During or right after, log each note with its time, kind and a tentative code.
  4. Write the context and a reflexive memo straight after.
  5. Read the summary, fill missing time stamps from the recording, and download the CSV for coding.

Start field notes

What the notes are for

Label every note

Field notes mix what a participant said word for word, what you summarized, what you saw and what you thought. Mixing them up later is one of the easiest ways to misquote a participant. Labeling each note as you write it, and time-stamping quotes so you can check them against the recording, keeps the record honest.

Reflexive memos

Qualitative researchers write memos about their own reactions, assumptions and surprises soon after each interview. Memos show how your thinking changed, help separate your view from the participant’s, and often hold the first ideas for codes and themes.

What this tool is not

It organizes notes; it does not do the analysis. Store notes as your approved protocol says, with codes in place of names. Notes stay in this browser.

Sources

  1. Emerson, R. M., Fretz, R. I., & Shaw, L. L. (2011). Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes (2nd ed.). University of Chicago Press.
  2. Saldaña, J. (2021). The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers (4th ed.). Sage.
  3. Merriam, S. B., & Tisdell, E. J. (2016). Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation (4th ed.). Jossey-Bass.
  4. Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, 34 CFR Part 99, when interviews concern students.

The example interview is made up. The organizer holds field notes; analysis and storage follow your approved research protocol. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.