Content and Thematic analysis

Question 1

what is qualitative data?

Answer 1

• non numerical data (words, pictures, videos etc)
• often collected through self reports or unstructured observations such as case studies

Question 2

what does content anaylsis do?

Answer 2

converts qualitative data into quantitative data

Question 3

how is content analysis carried out?

Answer 3

researcher creates a list of relevant categories based on their aim, then goes through the data and tallies each code each time it’s identified

Question 4

what does Thematic analysis do?

Answer 4

keeps data in qualitative form

Question 5

how is Thematic anaylsis carried out?

Answer 5

once transcribed data is reviewed repeatedly to identify emerging trends/themes, similar themes can be grouped together

Question 6

what are the strengths of content analysis?

Answer 6

• can be easily replicated by using the same coding system
• stats anaylsis can be conducted because the data has been tailled

Question 7

what are the limitations of content analysis?

Answer 7

• cause and effect cannot be determined as CA only describes the data
• researcher bias may interpret the categories differently

Question 8

what are the strengths of thematic analysis?

Answer 8

• provides richer, more detailed data than content analysis
• allows categories to emerge

Question 9

what are the limitations of thematic analysis?

Answer 9

• can be quite subjective although researchers often include a reflexivity section
• being so flexible may make it difficult to decide which aspects of the data to concentrate on

Question 10

how do you asses inter-reliability in content analysis?

Answer 10

• may need training
• at least 2 people writing behavioural categories
• analyse content separately
• compare your findings - correlation analysis (must have a correlation co-efficient of 0.8+)
• if not reliable, check categories are clearly defined and operationalised, then try again