What Is A Thematic Analysis

If done correctly, qualitative analysis can be a very powerful analytical tool. One of the methods for qualitative analysis that is most commonly employed is thematic analysis.

This analysis's flexibility in being used for both more deductive studies (where you see what you're looking for) and exploratory research (where you don't know what patterns to look for) is one of its advantages. This blog will dissect it and demonstrate what is a thematic analysis, and how to do it along with the proper thematic analysis technique.

What Is A Thematic Analysis?

Thematic analysis is the examination of patterns to discover meaning. In other words, it entails analyzing the patterns and themes in your data set to determine the underlying significance. Importantly, this process is guided by your research objectives and questions, so it is not necessary to identify every possible theme in the data but rather to focus on the key aspects that are relevant to your research questions.

Although research questions are a driving force in thematic analysis (and almost all analysis methods), it is important to remember that they are not always fixed. Because thematic analysis is an exploratory process, research questions may evolve as you progress through coding and theme identification.

When To Use Thematic Analysis

  • Using a set of qualitative data, such as survey responses, social media profiles, or interview transcripts, thematic analysis is a useful method for researching people's beliefs, opinions, knowledge, experiences, or values.
  • A thematic analysis can be used to address the following kinds of research questions:
  • What impressions do hospitalized patients have of their doctors?
  • How do dating sites affect the lives of young women?
  • What beliefs do non-experts have regarding climate change?
  • In teaching high school history, how is gender constructed?

Any of these questions would require you to gather information from a number of pertinent parties and then analyze it. By grouping the data into broad themes, thematic analysis gives you a great deal of flexibility in how you interpret the data and makes it easier to work with large data sets.

It does, however, also carry the risk of overlooking subtleties in the data. Because thematic analysis frequently depends on the researcher's judgment and is highly subjective, you must carefully consider the decisions and interpretations you make.

Make sure you are not highlighting or hiding anything that is present in the data by closely examining it.

Different Approaches To Thematic Analysis

  • There are various methods to think about after you've made the decision to employ theme analysis.
  • The difference between deductive and inductive approaches is as follows:
  • Using an inductive approach means letting the data reveal your themes.
  • Using a deductive approach means approaching the data with certain ideas about the themes you anticipate seeing there, either from theory or from prior knowledge.
  • Consider this: Does my theoretical framework provide me with a clear idea of the themes I anticipate discovering in the data (deductive), or do I intend to create an inductive framework based on what I discover?
  • The difference between a latent and a semantic approach is another:
  • Semantic analysis entails examining the data's explicit content.
  • Analyzing the assumptions and subtext behind the data is a latent approach.

Thematic Analysis Steps

Once you've determined that thematic analysis is the best technique for examining your data and have considered your strategy, you can proceed with the following six steps.

Let us begin with thematic analysis. Remember that the steps we'll go over here are general, and the ones you need to take will vary depending on your approach and research design.

1. Familiarization

The first step in thematic analysis is to look through your data for general topics. This is where audio data is transcribed into text.

At this point, you'll have to select what to code, what to use, and which codes best reflect your content. Consider your topic's emphasis and aims. Maintain a reflective diary. Here, you'll explain how you coded the data, why you did it, and what the findings were. You can reflect on the coding process and see if your codes and themes align with your outcomes. Using a reflective notebook from the start can be beneficial in subsequent stages of your investigation.

A reflexivity journal improves reliability by allowing for methodical, consistent data analysis. If you're using a reflexivity journal, enter your starting codes to see what your data shows. Later, the coded data may be subjected to further analysis or the discovery of separate codes.

2. Look For Themes In The Codes

Look for themes or patterns in the coding at this point. There is no easy or clear way to go from codes to themes. To gain more insight into the data, you might need to assign different codes or themes.

Themes and subthemes within themes that focus on an important or pertinent aspect may emerge as you examine the data. Your reflection diary entries at this stage should demonstrate how codes were deciphered and combined to create themes.

3. Review Themes

You now understand your themes, subthemes, and codes. Consider your subjects. At this point, you'll check to see if everything you've identified as a theme actually exists in the data and matches the data. You can move on to the next step knowing that you have correctly and completely coded all of your themes if there are any missing.

You might want to divide up your topics if they are too broad and have too much information under each one so that you can focus your research more specifically.

Please describe in your reflexivity journal how you understood the themes, how the evidence supports them, and how they relate to your codes. Additionally, you ought to assess your research questions to make sure the information and subjects you have learned about are pertinent.

4. Finalize Themes

After you have finished, labelled, and reviewed your themes, your analysis will begin to take shape. You are still able to revise and reconsider your topics even after you have moved past them. Unlike the previous step, finalizing your themes necessitates an in-depth explanation of them. In case you encounter difficulties, make sure your data and code correspond to the themes and divide them into multiple sections as needed. Make sure the name of your theme accurately conveys its features.

At this stage, make sure your themes align with your research questions. You are nearing the conclusion of your analysis when you refine it. It's important to keep in mind that the goals and objectives of your research must be met in your final report, which is covered in the next phase.

In your reflexivity journal, explain how you choose your topics. Mention how the theme will affect your research results and what it implies for your research questions and emphasis.

By the conclusion of this stage, you’ll have finished your topics and be able to write a report.

5. Report Writing

By now, you're almost finished! After reviewing your data, prepare a report. A report on thematic analysis comprises:

  • A starting
  • An approach
  • The results
  • Outcome

Make sure you include enough information in your report so that a client can evaluate your conclusions. Stated differently, the audience is interested in learning how and why you examined the data. Here, the terms "what," "how," "why," "who," and "when" are useful.

What, then, did you discover? How did you proceed? How did you decide on this approach? Who are the participants and focus of your research? When did you conduct your research and gather and produce your data? You can identify, justify, and provide evidence for your topics by using your reflexivity notebook.

You must identify each and every one of your results when you are writing them up. The findings must be verifiable by the reader. When reporting your findings, be careful to connect them to your research questions. Analytics and reporting work together to provide useful insights, which are then communicated to stakeholders through reporting. This is the foundation of practical business intelligence. Assuring that your results are pertinent to your subject and queries will help you avoid having your client wonder about them.

Benefits and Drawbacks of Thematic Analysis

When it comes to research design, a technical or pragmatic perspective emphasizes that researchers should conduct qualitative analyses utilizing the approach that best addresses the research question. Since there is rarely a single best or appropriate approach, additional factors—such as the researcher's theoretical stance and familiarity with specific methodologies—are frequently taken into consideration when choosing an analysis method.

Researchers with a variety of methodological backgrounds can engage in this kind of analysis thanks to the flexible method of data analysis offered by thematic analysis. The processes of data analytics and data analysis are closely related to one another and involve taking insights from data to help with decision-making.

The numerous ways in which the data might be interpreted and the possibility of researcher subjectivity leading to "bias" or distortion of the analysis are the reasons why positivists are concerned about "reliability." Reliability worries disappear when one adheres to the principles of qualitative research and views researcher subjectivity as a resource rather than a danger to credibility.

There's no exact or accurate way to interpret the data. The interpretations, which represent the researcher's perspective, are inherently subjective. A methodical, exacting approach is necessary to achieve quality, as is the researcher's ongoing reflection on how their work is influencing the analysis as it develops.

Both the benefits and drawbacks of thematic analysis are numerous. The researchers will have to determine whether or not this analysis method is appropriate for their research design.

Benefit 

  • Researchers can apply multiple theories in different epistemologies to this process due to the flexibility of theoretical and research design.
  • Excellent for large-scale data sets.
  • Research teams are intended to use the coding and codebook reliability approaches.
  • Interpretation of data-supported themes.
  • Relevant to inquiries into research that transcend the personal experience of an individual.
  • It enables the inductive creation of themes and codes from data.

Drawback

  • If a researcher applies thematic analysis in a theoretical vacuum without exercising caution, the analysis may overlook subtle data.
  • Novice researchers may find it challenging to choose which features of the data to concentrate on due to the flexibility.
  • Limited ability to interpret if the analysis lacks a theoretical foundation.
  • The emphasis on finding themes in all data elements makes it difficult to preserve a sense of data continuity across individual accounts.
  • It prevents researchers from making technical claims regarding language use, in contrast to discourse analysis and narrative analysis.

Wrapping Up 

Thematic analysis is a great tool for novice researchers who are not familiar with more complex qualitative research because it is simple to use. It gives the researcher complete freedom in selecting a theoretical framework.

The ability to describe your data in a rich, complex, and sophisticated way is made possible by the versatility of theme analysis. Unlike other analytic techniques that are rigidly tied to particular approaches, this technique can be used with any theory the researcher wishes. You can learn how to do proper thematic analysis for research by following these steps.

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