Content And Thematic Analysis

Question 1

Content analysis

Answer 1

An indirect observation often of qualitative data

Question 2

What are the steps to content analysis

Answer 2

Decide a research question
Select a sample of qualitative data
Coding, Researchers decide on categories/coding units
Research records every time one of the categories is observed
Quantitate of data can then be analysed

Question 3

How can the reliability of content analysis be increased

Answer 3

1 Interrater reliability- This is when a second writer separately performs content analysis and the results are correlated
2 Test retest- Running the content analysis again on the same data and then correlating the results

A correlation coefficient of over 0.8 is strong and reliable

Question 4

Evaluate the use of content analysis

Answer 4

+ Qualitative data is gained naturally in real life situations so has high ecological validity
- Content analysis may be affected by observer bias as they may subjectively interpret behavioural categories differently

Question 5

What is the thematic analysis

Answer 5

• Attempting to analyse the deeper meaning of text by becoming familiar with it an allowing themes to emerge

Question 6

How is thematic analysis carried out

Answer 6

• Text or recordings are gathered
• Researcher becomes familiar with the text
• Themes begin to emerge in the text
• themes and behaviour is reviewed to see if it answers the research question
• researcher then defines themes with with specific examples from the data 

Question 7

Evaluate thematic analysis

Answer 7

+ Left as qualitative data and remains great in detail
+ Allowing the themes to emerge prevents research a bias as it stops the researcher imposing what they are looking for
+ Easy to obtain the data and replicate
- Subjective interpretations or not as reliable
- Hard to analyse and compare the data as it is still qualitative