Thematic analysis

Question 1

what is thematic analysis?

Answer 1

• A method used to identify and analyse patterns across a text-based data set.
• Foundational method that underpins many other approaches in qualitative research
• Flexible approach – can be used with a wide range of data sources and epistemological standpoints

Question 2

what are the types of Epistemological standpoints?

Answer 2

• Essentialist or realist approach
• Critical realist approach

Question 3

what is the essentialist or realist approach (epistemological standpoint)

Answer 3

Focus on experiences, meanings and the reality of participants’ lives. People’s words provide direct access to their inner world

Question 4

what is the critical realist (epistemological standpoint)

Answer 4

Focus on how individuals make meaning of their experiences based on their socio-cultural situation. People’s words provide access to their version of reality

Question 5

what is a theme?

Answer 5

• A theme is a patterned response in your data set that has meaning in relation to the research question
• No rules to help you classify themes (e.g., % of instances or length of response).
• Prevalence may or may not be important - it depends on your research question:
  Most common ways X is described
  What people think of X
  Why people enact X

Question 6

what are the types of thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006)

Answer 6

Inductive TA:
- data-driven with extracted themes grounded in the data
Deductive TA:
- uses existing theory to guide analysis and the extraction of themes. It moves beyond the semantic meanings offered in the data set

Question 7

what are the six phases of thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006)

Answer 7

1. Familiarising yourself with your data
2. Generating initial codes
3. Searching for themes
4. Reviewing themes
5. Defining and naming themes
6. Producing the report

Question 8

Familiarisation stage

Answer 8

• Get to know your data
• Repeated reading of your whole data set
• Active reading
• End phase by making notes on overall observations on the data set

Question 9

what is the generating codes stage?

Answer 9

• Coding interesting features of the data in a systematic fashion across the entire data set, collating data relevant to each code (Braun and Clarke, 2006)
• coding: Process of identifying aspects of the data that relate to the research question
• Codes provide the building blocks of analysis
• approach to coding relies on TA

Question 10

what are semantic codes?

Answer 10

• Provide a succinct summary of the explicit content of the data.
• Based in the semantic meaning of the data.
• Typically stay close to content of the data and to participants’ meanings

Question 11

what are latent codes?

Answer 11

• Go beyond the explicit content of the data & provide an interpretation about the data content.
• Invoke the researcher’s conceptual & theoretical frameworks to identify implicit meanings within the data

Question 12

How do you search for themes in thematic analysis?

Answer 12

• This phase involves organising the different codes into potential themes
• You will start with your long list of collated codes.
• Reviewing codes & collated data relating to each code.
• Cluster codes - sharing some unifying feature, so they reflect & describe a coherent and meaningful pattern in the data

Question 13

Reviewing the themes chosen in thematic analysis

Answer 13

• Do your tentative themes form a coherent pattern?
• The codes within a theme should fit together meaningfully and be relevant to your research question.
• Each theme should be distinct from another one.
• Re-read WHOLE data set: codes may get discarded, new data coded and theme boundaries may get reworked.

Question 14

Defining and naming themes in thematic analysis

Answer 14

Clearly define themes - need to be able to clearly state what is unique & specific about each theme & determining what aspect of the data each theme captures