Thematic Analysis Flashcards
What is thematic analysis?
Finding themes and meaning within material
What are the advantages of TA?
Can be used with any qualitative data set
What are the disadvantages of TA?
Once the researcher finds a few themes, they tend to only look for examples of that theme
What does IPA stand for?
Interpretative phenomenology analysis
What is IPA?
Qualitative analysis that makes psychological assumptions about knowledge
What are the assumptions about knowledge in IPA?
Researchers interpret the participants interpretations (interpretations are not facts)
What 3 things are useful in designing an IPA study?
Idiographic (not nomothetic) / Meaning (not causation) / Quality (not quantity)
Why should an IPA study be idiographic over nomothetic?
Interested in a particular case - not the general statistics
Why should an IPA study have meaning over causal relations?
Interested in what things mean to people
Why should an IPA study have quality over quantity?
Interested in the quality and types of experiences, not the amount
What is the main approach for IPA data gathering?
Semi-structured interviews to get the participants own words / flexibility to probe and explore
What is the most important thing about the sample?
The type, not the size
What 5 things would you need to do in an IPA study to transcribe the interview?
Read through the analysis / identify key words / identify themes / cluster themes / integrate cases
What 5 things would you need to do in a TA study to transcribe the interview?
Familiarise self with material / code / find themes / review themes / define and name themes
What is validation?
Checking the plausibility
What should you do during IPA analysis and in the write up?
During analysis: iterative reading / Write up: present quotes
According to Smith, how can you improve the quality of qualitative analysis?
Skilled interviewing techniques / evidence to support claims / detailed commentary
What are the advantages of using IPA?
Gives speakers a voice / high validity / in-depth
What are the disadvantages of using IPA?
Idiographic (may lead to generalisations) / assumes language isn’t problematic / people’s experiences are not necessarily truth’s
When should you use TA? When should you use IPA?
TA for social media / IPA when interviewing a group about their experiences
How are TA and IPA procedures similar? What 4 things do they both do?
Read, code, organise, commentary
