At a heartland of researcher development: ‘finding the beat’ of human and AI-supported technology

This article offers insights for researcher development, specifically to those within novice or advisory roles, to consider key decision ‘moments’ in research and to have those decisions guided by methodological support for such moments. Consistent with this point of departure, the researcher used a lens of ‘narrative moments’ to capture building the qualitative research process in its several ways. These narrative moments distil how researchers may use process maps (referred to as a meta-map for this study) accompanied by technological tools, such as ATLAS.ti™ with its Artificial Intelligence (AI) functionalities (hereafter, ATLAS.ti), to support the robustness of the methodological audit trail around conventions of the scholarly method. The study relies ethically on the self-narration of these moments drawn from different modes of researcher engagement over ten years of researcher development. The paper contributes to the debates around three issues: how, pragmatically, to make sense of the research process; the merits of a research guide, or not, to respond to the coherence of the research process, and then, the potential for using ATLAS.ti for research conventions, across disciplines, in the undertaking of research. In relation to the latter, the paper surfaces the uses of AI capabilities for research, a burgeoning area that warrants on-going exploration. It also contends that the meta-map and Qualitative Data Analysis Software (QDAS) empower researchers, who might not regularly be able to engage with mainstream researcher development opportunities, to work autonomously on on-going research projects.