Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #thematicanalysis
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Thoughts on themes & results in #ThematicAnalysis. There are many ways to think about this, here's mine (currently).
Themes don't emerge, but also themes are not your results. They're ways of organising data that help you tell a story about some aspects of your research area.
Themes don't emerge, but also themes are not your results. They're ways of organising data that help you tell a story about some aspects of your research area.
Themes aren't right or wrong, they're just more or less interesting. Themes like "barriers" and "drivers" aren't *wrong*, they're just usually not conducive to interesting stories. Maybe they suggest a need to keep looking for themes that will help tell a richer story.
Look for themes that you wouldn't have thought of before you started analysing the data. Look for themes that surprise you. That's where the really good stories are.
And we're live from 'Common challenges in Thematic Analysis and how to avoid them' with @ginnybraun @drvicclarke @drnikkihayfield & @GarethRTerry. #TalkingTA #ThematicAnalysis
Tune in here:
Follow this thread for top takeaways
Tune in here:
Follow this thread for top takeaways
First, a reminder that this webinar is being recorded and the recording will be available on the SAGE Publishing YouTube channel. We'll also share it here and via email.
This webinar is oversubscribed, so not everyone will be able to watch it via Zoom. However, you'll still be able to watch it and ask questions via the YouTube livestream:
New paper (by @DrAmyPearson @KieranRose7 @Jon_C_Rees) explores the impact of IPV on autistic adults
“I felt I deserved it because I was Autistic”: Understanding the Impact of Interpersonal Victimisation in the Lives of Autistic People
🧵by @DrAmyPearson
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…
“I felt I deserved it because I was Autistic”: Understanding the Impact of Interpersonal Victimisation in the Lives of Autistic People
🧵by @DrAmyPearson
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…
Autistic adults are more likely to experience IPV, and this may explain high rates of PTSD. We wanted to explore the impact that this has on them, what the barriers to help-seeking are, and what we can do to improve support. We used Frosts process model of stigma as a framework.
We recruited 102 autistic adults to take part in an interview, via online survey with open text, or spoken video chat. 100 people gave written interviews, and 2 gave spoken. This data was entered into nVivo (qual analysis software).
1/ Head on over to my YouTube channel for new lectures on Thematic Analysis, the Foundations of Qualitative Research & Qualitative Research Design created by me, @drnikkihayfield & @ginnybraun with narration by me (& occasionally my cat!) - please share!: youtube.com/channel/UCLBw6…
2/ We will add the slides & handouts to thematicanalysis.net as soon as we get a chance. There are two - 3 part - lectures on the Foundations of Qual Research. Foundations 1 is a gentle introduction for those new(ish) to qual, starting w/ what is qual?:
3/ Foundations 1 part 2 is about meaning and meaning making in Big Q qualitative research - the lectures in the series focus on Big Q (the use of qualitative techniques underpinned by qualitative research values) -
Next in our BNurs(Hons) research feature: Eillish Satchell is an emergency department nurse whose project identified the factors that impact on early-career nurses’ thriving in the workplace #WorkplaceWellbeing #NursingResearch [1/6] 
Eillish’s project applied the popular model of workplace wellbeing: A Socially Embedded Model of Thriving at Work #Thriving #Wellbeing #Resilience doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1… [2/6]
Ellish conducted semi-structured interviews with early-career nurses. Through #ThematicAnalysis she developed five key themes:
1.Interpersonal relationships
2.Work environments
3.Positive meaning
4.Ongoing learning
5.The effect of organisation [3/6]
1.Interpersonal relationships
2.Work environments
3.Positive meaning
4.Ongoing learning
5.The effect of organisation [3/6]
1/ @ginnybraun & I have written a lot about TA since our first paper Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology in 2006. Here's a thread of things we have written since then, starting with a paper on what constitutes quality practice in TA & 10 common problems: tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…
2/ Unsure if TA is the right method for your project? And when & why you'd use TA & not IPA, or qualitative content analysis or grounded theory or discourse analysis... then this paper is for you (free to read online right now): onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.10…
3/ One of the hallmarks of TA is its flexibility but this also means there are a lot of decisions to be made about the conceptualisation & design of your project. Our most recent paper - a beast! - walks you through these decisions & has tips on reporting: psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi…
1/ A thread providing an overview of my & @ginnybraun's latest paper on #thematicanalysis - Conceptual & Design Thinking for Thematic Analysis in the APA journal Qualitative Psychology - I will link to an open access version at the end of the thread: psycnet.apa.org/record/2021-45…
2/ Why this paper? Because TA is closer to a method (trans theoretical technique) rather than a methodology (theoretically informed & delimited framework for research) researchers need to engage in careful conceptual & design thinking to produce coherent research.
3/ What Levitt et al. (2017) call research with "methodological integrity". Some argue TA is actually a challenging option because it necessitates conceptual & design thinking - we like to see this more positively as TA making visible the thinking necessary for quality research.
A thread on why @ginnybraun & I have tweaked the names of the six phases of reflexive #thematicanalysis in our forthcoming book Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide. Out in October with @SAGEpsychology. In our 2006 paper Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology we called the phases:
...hold on while I look this up (seriously who remembers the details of what they wrote 15 years ago?!)... 1) familiarising yourself with the data; 2) generating initial codes; 3) searching for themes: 4) reviewing themes; 5) defining and naming themes; 6) producing the report.
In the book the 6 phases are now called: 1) familiarisation ; 2) data coding ; 3) generating initial themes; 4) reviewing & developing themes; 5) refining, defining & naming themes; 6) writing the report. Why have we made these changes? We've reflected a lot on the assumptions we
Anyone having to teach #thematicanalysis & qual methods online @ginnybraun & I have lots of resources you can use - here's an hour lecture providing a basic intro to our TA approach (please feel free to use in yr teaching rather than reinvent the wheel):
This lecture maps out different approaches to #thematicanalysis & covers quality and good practice (so will work as lecture 2):
Our companion website for our textbook Successful Qualitative Research has loads of resources - a flip card glossary of key terms & concepts 4 revision, a bank of MCQs, a focus group audio file 4 practising transcriptin, data for practising coding, egs of research materials...
1/ @slsibbald asked for my & @ginnybraun's thoughts on theme saturation & this deserves a whole thread of its own - to unpack our gaaaahhhhh! reaction... There are several papers that set out to determine how many interviews (or focus groups) are required to achieve saturation in
2/ #thematicanalysis & make (somewhat nuanced/contextualised) claims about the number of interviews necessary to achieve theme or data saturation. In our view these papers make some rather extraordinary assumptions that speak to fundamental philosophical differences between
3/ coding reliability TA & our reflexive approach. For example, most of these papers consider a code saturated when 1 instance has been identified. For us the notion that the work of a code is done with 1 instance identified is rather puzzling. But when we look at what is being..
1 For those of you writing dissertations right now using #thematicanalysis some thoughts on writing up a TA study. First, justifying your choice of TA. Try not to just recite general features of TA - it's flexible, it's accessible etc. - lifted from a list in one of our papers
2 These are not intended as rationales for using TA in specific studies but as general features of TA (compared to other approaches). The trick is discussing why these features mattered for *your* study. Why was it beneficial for your study that TA is theoretically flexible?
3 How did you make use of this feature? If you didn't, don't discuss. Also hold in mind a distinction between conceptual & design rationales & pragmatic & practical rationales. The former are generally seen as more important/compelling. Accessibility falls into the pragmatic...
1/10 For those of you learning about or having a go at #thematicanalysis for the first time, & particularly the TA approach developed by me & @ginnybraun (which is quite diff from others), I want to share some thoughts on coding in our approach, & tips for learning to code well.
2/10 One thing to avoid when you're reading data is starting to think about themes straight away & use coding to identify themes in the data. Our approach involves building themes from codes, so themes happen later in the process. Make a note of your ideas & put them aside.
3/10 You want to avoid reading the data through the lens of these initial impressions - sometimes our initial thoughts are 'gold', but often they are quite superficial or obvious, & a thorough familiarisation & coding process can lead to more complex, nuanced & richer insights.
After reading a lot of student dissertations/theses recently - some thoughts on writing discussion sections/chapters in qual reports, & particularly reports of #thematicanalysis. Often the trickiest part of a diss as we have run out of steam & have no idea what to say!
Discussions (conventional ones at least) are tricky because they are both formulaic (evaluate the study, make suggestions for future research) and also very open - there's lots of scope to choose what to focus on beyond the expected content. Some things to avoid first.
When making suggestions for future research - don't switch on the random ideas generator! The suggestions should *arise* from yr research. The limitations of your sample is often the go-to choice here but explain why it would be interesting to talk to other groups.
1/10 For those of you teaching #thematicanalysis and #qualitativemethods or learning about these - here are some resources @ginnybraun and I have put together. First, check out our textbook Successful qualitative research: uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/succ…
2/10 The companion website for SQR had lots of resources for teaching & learning - data-sets, including an audio-recording of a focus group, examples of research materials, flip card glossary, MCQs, links to readings...: studysites.uk.sagepub.com/braunandclarke…
3/10 Our latest book Collecting qualitative data with @DrDebraGray provides a practical and accessible introduction to data collection beyond the face to face interview: studysites.uk.sagepub.com/braunandclarke…
Important process differences within #thematicanalysis family: small q (deductive, coding reliability concerns, qual data in quant thinking) vs big Q (data driven, open flexible organic coding), middle q (training with @ginnybraun @QRNHub)
But what’s a theme @ginnybraun? Domain summaries - cluster responses to a q or issue but lots of meaning variation within eg a single theme that covers ‘risks and benefits of x’ #thisisbad
Vs meaning based themes - an underlying idea or concept that holds the data together (data may look superficially different but is united by the idea) #thisisgood @ginnybraun @QRNHub
Ten tweets on why @ginnybraun and I find the language of 'themes emerged' so problematic in #thematicanalysis and how else can you write about your themes and how they were developed, if they don't emerge from data like bubbles rising to the top of a champagne glass?
2/10 Two main reasons why we find themes emerged or emerging so problematic - 1) it implies that the themes pre-exist the analysis and are waiting in the data for the researcher to find them. We'd call this a discovery orientation to analysis - reflected in terms like 'findings'.
3/10 2) The suggestion is that the themes emerged all by themselves, that the researcher didn't play an active role in the production or generation of the themes. They just sat and waited while their themes wafted to the surface of the data, and then scooped them up...
1/10 I knew @ginnybraun & I couldn't tackle the use of saturation in #thematicanalysis in only 10 tweets! I want to come back to this paper & explain why most papers offering concrete guidance on saturation only work for coding reliability TA: journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…
2/10 This & other papers use TA to analyse data & produce guidance on saturation - the problem is none define/locate their type or style of TA, explain the philosophical & procedural assumptions embedded within it, and how these diff from other types or styles of TA...
3/10 Guest et al. assume themes are like 'diamonds in the sand', entities that pre-exist the analysis, & so the analytic task is unearthing the themes that already exist in the data, we discuss this further in this commentary (on a statistical model): tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…
