Qualitative: Thematic approaches

Question 1

Aspects of an interview that should be considered

Answer 1

Participants
Role of the interviewer
Research contract
The interview questions
Transcribing the interview

Question 2

Things to consider when recruiting participants for an interview

Answer 2

	Who will you interview?
	How will you recruit them?
	What will you tell them about…
                      The research
                      You

Question 3

Things to consider about the researchers role in an interview

Answer 3

 How will you present yourself?
 Dress, language, attitude
 What role will you play?- Official, friend, one of them
 How will you develop rapport?
 How will you enable participants to talk freely?
 How will your respond to any distress?

Question 4

Things to consider about the research contract

Answer 4

 Want to obtain informed consent to participate
 Discuss with participants
 Ask permission to record
 Assure confidentiality and anonymity
 Duty to disclose in cases of abuse/bad practice etc.

Question 5

Feature of semi-structured interviews

Answer 5

o Just a few guide questions (7-10), few because you want the participants to talk of what is important to them
o Can vary question order as necessary
o Might not use all questions
o Gain detailed responses
o Interviewer’s role and presence important
o Simple and unambiguous
o Open not closed (not Yes/No answers)
o Probes- follow-up, encourage e.g. Can you tell me more about that?
o Ask for further thoughts from the participants at the end of the interview

Question 6

What is the thematic approach?

Answer 6

 Look for themes, categories and codes within the data- What are the commonalities across what people are saying?
o Use them to search through subsequent data
o ‘Flip-flop’ approach to return to first set of data to seek new themes
 Cluster themes and codes to eventually reach master themes.

Question 7

2 kinds of thematic approach

Answer 7

I. Thematic Analysis

II. IPA (interpretative phenomenological analysis)

Question 8

What is thematic analysis

Answer 8

• Thematic analysis is a method for identifying, analysing, and reporting patterns (themes) within data
Steps in thematic analysis
1) Familiarise yourself with the data
2) Generate initial ‘codes’ or ‘proto‐themes’
 A code is simply an initial label or category that a piece of data can be given; it is the most basic level at which the data is meaningful (i.e. worried about child, spoke about it with husband)
3) Search for ‘themes’
 A theme will combine a number of codes (categories) to indicate an overall meaning bases on all the interviews conducted
4) Review themes (which ones are most recurrent, are there any that express the same ideas)
5) Define and name themes
6) Report the results

Question 9

What is IPA

Answer 9

Interpretative phenomenological analysis
A thematic approach to qualitative research.
o Phenomenological: concern with the way in which an individual makes sense of an event.
• Understanding of experience from descriptions given by those who have had the experience
• Tries to makes sense of the meanings of events/experiences to the participants
• Explores their personal and social world using the meanings that events and experiences hold for them
• “to explore in detail how participants are making sense of their personal and social world, and the main currency for an IPA study is the meanings that particular experiences, events and states hold for participants.”

Question 10

Steps in IPA

Answer 10

1. Transcribe an interview
2. Note any observations about the data
3. Look for themes
4. Connect the themes using higher level theoretical connections
5. Cluster the themes to develop master themes
6. Move across interviews