Thematic & Content Analysis

Thematic analysis

• Done by identifying trends within data and slowly adjusting the trends as you get further into the data set

• Involves analysing every word in a qualitative piece of data and arranging them into themes

• You read the same data set several times and slowly become immersed in the data

Phases of thematic analysis

1) Familiarisation with the data: Involves intensely reading the data, becoming immersed in the data

2) Coding: Involves generating codes/labels and determining if there are themes within the data set

3) Searching for themes: Involves examining the codes/labels and determining if there are themes within the data set

4) Reviewing themes: Checking the potential themes against the data. Themes are refined, with the researcher sometimes splitting or discarding one

5) Defining and naming themes - Details analysis of each theme and creating a name that encapsulates the theme

6) Writing up - Involves combining together the information to write up the research.

Content analysis

• A number of ways to quantify qualitative data in content analysis

• E.g.

  • By word - no of slang words used

  • By theme - Amount of violence on TV

  • By character - Number of female commentators there are on sports TV shows#

  • By time and space - The amount of time and space dedicated to eating disorders (on TV or newspapers)

Content analysis procedure

1) Initially become increasingly familiar with the data by going through it several times. This could be a speech, a film, a transcript or an interview etc.

2) The familiarity helps identify any relevant themes/coding units that can be used to dissect the data

3) Researcher works through the data again and uses a behavioural checklist to tally the frequency that each coding unit appears

4) Provides categorical (nominal) data that can be displayed in graphs and statistically analysed (e.g. a Chi square stats test)

Strengths (+)

• Both methods are easy to perform and an inexpensive research method that works with both primary and secondary data. Its a non-invasive technique that often doesn’t need contact with the PTS

• As content analysis works with identified behavioural categories it is easier to replicate from the same raw data e.g. interview transcripts. Ultimately, the behavioural categories that have been identified act as standard procedures. This allows replication by others to confirm whether the findings are consistent

• Likewise, the raw data (e.g. transcripts) from thematic analysis are open to analysis by others, allowing for reliability fo data to be investigated

Weaknesses (-)

• As these techniques are not typically performed under controlled conditions, they cannot deduce causes effect relationships that are needed in psychology i.e. without controlled setting all sorts of extraneous variables could impact upon the findings. This implies researchers must be cautious when interpreting the findings from such methods

• These techniques are purely descriptive and so do not reveal underlying reasons for behaviour, attitudes etc. i.e. they offer explanations for ‘what’ but not ‘why’. This limits the use of such research methods

• These research methods may give flawed results when trying to analyse events in society (e.g. views on the NHS) as they are limited by the availability of material. Therefore any observed trends may not accurately reflect reality e.g. negative events often receive more publicity than positive events. This implies such methods suffer from significant theoretical problems.