Lately I have encountered a lot of what I think are confusing or even questionable reports of thematic analyses in qualitative research. These have come from both published and unpublished (reviewed) research.
What is a theme anyway? I was trained to look at a hierarchy going from specific to general as: code to category to theme (which is described in Saldaña, cited below) and I think that training probably underlies a lot of my qualitative analysis. I will add the caveat that thematic analysis as I practice it in interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is slightly different because I do not engage in open coding but instead the stages of commenting as recommended by Smith, Flowers and Larkin in their book (Sage, 2009). But themes even in IPA represent the culmination of finer, detailed analysis. Per Saldaña (2013) a theme is "an outcome of coding, cateogorization, or analytic reflection, not the thing, that is, in itself, coded" (p. 14; The coding manual for qualitative researchers, Sage). However, I would say based on context of some of the things I've read, that theme is used in many different ways, and not all of them, in my opinion, are appropriate. Click on read more to see my list.
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AuthorI am Sheryl L. Chatfield, Ph.D, C.T.R.S. I am a member of the faculty in the College of Public Health at Kent State University. I also Co-coordinate the Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Research and I am a member of the Design Innovation Team at Kent State. Archives
February 2024
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