Developments in Thematic Analysis

Question 1

what is thematic analysis the foundation for?

Answer 1

qualitative analyses used to identify meaningful themes in order to understand social talk

Question 2

what do themes consist of?

Answer 2

recurrent ideas, topics, and statements that generate a pattern to add to experiences

Question 3

what is epistemology?

Answer 3

nature of knowledge

Question 4

approaches of epistemology

Answer 4

positivism
contextualism
social constructionism

Question 5

what does positivism believe about human experience?

Answer 5

that it is knowledgeable, and research investigates the truth

knowledge is inert and impartial

Question 6

what does contextualism necessitate?

Answer 6

the need for contextualisation of behaviour, as there is no single reality

Question 7

what does social constructionism use?

Answer 7

research to investigate accounts, as knowledge is active and reconstructed through language

Question 8

what is ontology?

Answer 8

nature of reality

Question 9

approaches of ontology

Answer 9

realism
critical realism
relativism

Question 10

what does realism argue exists?

Answer 10

a pre-social reality exists, that can be fully accessed through research

Question 11

what does critical realism believe?

Answer 11

a pre-social reality can only ever be partially known

Question 12

what does relativism state?

Answer 12

reality is dependent on the ways we come to know it

Question 13

issues with thematic analysis

Answer 13

• coding reliability measures
• a mashing of other approaches

Question 14

what does reflexive thematic analysis offer?

Answer 14

a focus on deliberate methodological decisions that allow for exploration on the position of the researcher, in relation to the topic of study

Question 15

how can reflexive TA be conceptualised?

Answer 15

using a ‘big q’ organic/inductive method to explore meaning construction

Question 16

interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA)

Answer 16

attempts to understand experiences from participants’ perspectives through descriptive, linguistic, and conceptual comments

Question 17

discourse analysis (DA)

Answer 17

considers talk as social action which allows people to convey their social position

Question 18

conversational analysis

Answer 18

focuses on how interactions are represented via talk and in naturally occurring conversations

Question 19

grounded theory

Answer 19

involves the identification of a model generated from the data, with no preconcieved ideas on what might be found

Question 20

content analysis

Answer 20

uses a count frequency of pre-defined behaviour

Question 21

what is IPA flexible to?

Answer 21

researcher positionalirty and adheres to a set of philosophical assumptions

Question 22

what does IPA focus on?

Answer 22

personal experience and meaning-making, using small homogenous samples

this allows depth of interpretation and consideration of broader social structures

Question 23

how is researcher subjectivity explained in IPA?

Answer 23

the double hermeneutic

Question 24

first hermeneutic…

Answer 24

participants making sense of their experiences

Question 25

second hermeneutic…

Answer 25

researcher making sense of the participants’ sense-making

Question 26

differences between TA and IPA

Answer 26

IPA tends to be more detailed and draw on metaphor, psychological processes, and language use

Question 27

what is DA influenced by?

Answer 27

the process is heavily influenced by theories and concepts

Question 28

what does DA involve?

Answer 28

multiple iterations which range from specific focus on language use, to a broader approach where language represents social discourses

Question 29

differences between TA and DA

Answer 29

TA coding follows a more inductive, practice-based approach to interpret data, whereas DA draws on the specific functions of language use