Purpose- The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a study to explore
qualitative data analysis software used among social sciences and humanities
researchers. Also, the study tried to reveal the possibility of using these tools by
Arab social sciences and humanities scholars.
Additionally, the study tried to find the best software that can handle data in the
Arabic language and how these tools function with Arabic documents. Moreover,
the study explored other functions provided by these tools that may pose a great
benefit for Arab researchers.
Design/methodology/approach- The study adopted a comparative analytical
approach to explore the characteristics of the qualitative analysis tools and their
relevance to the Arab user, also their compatibility with the Arabic texts. The
study proposed a list of the most important technical and functional criteria that
represent the basis of any qualitative analysis software.
Findings- The analysis of the interviews revealed that there are three qualitative
analysis software that fit the Arab user' needs and support the Arabic language,
but the study has concluded that most of these programs showed some issues
and limitations while handling the Arabic data. The study recommended using
ATLAS. ti software as it showed less problems while using it with the Arabic data.