Using thematic analysis in psychology.docx

Using thematic analysis in psychology.docx

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Usingthematicanalysisinpsychology

VirginiaBraun* & VictoriaClarke

DepartmentofPsychology FacultyofAppliedSciences

TheUniversityofAuckland TheUniversityoftheWestofEngland

PrivateBag92019 FrenchayCampus

Auckland Bristol

NewZealand BS161QY

v.braun@auckland.ac.nz Victoria.clarke@jwe.ac.uk

Ph:

+6493737599x87561 +441173282176

Fax:

+6493737450 +441173282904

MSWordLength（incl.references,notes,tablesandfigures）:

13510

Thematicanalysisisapoorlydemarcated,rarely-acknowledged,yetwidely-usedqualitativeanalyticmethodwithinpsychology.Inthispaper,wearguethatitoffersanaccessibleandtheoretically-flexibleapproachtoanalysingqualitativedata.Weoutlinewhatthematicanalysisis,locatingitinrelationtootherqualitativeanalyticmethodsthatsearchforthemesorpatterns,andinrelationtodifferentepistemologicalandontologicalpositions.Wethenprovideclearguidelinestothosewantingtostartthematicanalysis,orconductitinamoredeliberateandrigorousway,andconsiderpotentialpitfallsinconductingthematicanalysis.Finally,weoutlinethedisadvantagesandadvantagesofthematicanalysis.Weconcludebyadvocatingthematicanalysisasausefulandflexiblemethodforqualitativeresearchinandbeyondpsychology.

Keywords,thematicanalysis,qualitativepsychology,patterns,epistemology,flexibility

AuthorBiographicalNotes

VirginiaBraunisaseniorlecturerintheDepartmentofPsychologyatTheUniversityofAuckland,wheresheteaches,supervisesandconductsqualitativeresearch.Herresearchinterestsareprimarilyfocusedaroundwomen’shealth,genderedbodies,andsexandsexuality,andtheintersectionsbetweentheseareas.Sheiscurrentlyworkingonprojectsrelatedto'sexinlong-termrelationships','femalegenitalcosmeticsurgery',and‘thesocialcontextofSTItransmission’.

VictoriaClarkeisaseniorlectureinsocialpsychologyattheUniversityoftheWestofEngland.Shehaspublishedanumberofpapersonlesbianandgayparenting,andco-editedtwospecialissuesofFeminism&PsychologyonMarriage（withSara-JaneFinlay&SUeWilkinson）.SheiscurrentlyconductingESRC-fundedresearchonsamesexrelationships（withCarolBurgoyne&MareeBurns）andco-editing（withElizabethPeel）abookLGBTpsychology（OutinPsychology,Wley）.

Thematicanalysisisapoorlydemarcatedandrarely-acknowledged,yetwidely-usedqualitativeanalyticmethod（seeBoyatzis,1998;Roulston,2001）withinandbeyondpsychology.Inthispaper,weaimtofillwhatwe,asresearchersandteachersinqualitativepsychology,haveexperiencedasacurrentgap:

theabsenceofapaperwhichadequatelyoutlinesthetheory,application,andevaluationofthematicanalysis,andonewhichdoessoinawayaccessibletostudentsandthosenotparticularlyfamiliarwithqualitativeresearch.1Thatis,weaimtowriteapaperwhichwillbeusefulasbothateachingandresearchtoolinqualitativepsychology.Therefore,inthispaperwediscusstheoryandmethodforthematicanalysis,andclarifythesimilaritiesanddifferencesbetweendifferentapproachesthatsharefeaturesincommonwithathematicapproach.

Qualitativeapproachesareincrediblydiverse,complexandnuanced（Holloway&Todres,2003）,andthematicanalysisshouldbeseenasafoundationalmethodforqualitativeanalysis.Itisthefirstqualitativemethodofanalysisthatresearchersshouldlearn,asitprovidescoreskiIIsthatwillbeusefulforconductingmanyotherformsofqualitativeanalysis.Indeed,HollowayandTodres（2003:

347）identify“thematizingmeanings”asoneofafewsharedgenericskillsacrossqualitativeanalysis.2Forthisreason,Boyatzis（1998）characterisesitnotasaspecificmethodbutasatooltouseacrossdifferentmethods.Smilarly,RyanandBernard（2000）locatethematiccodingasaprocessperformedwithin‘major’analytictraditions（suchasgroundedtheory）,ratherthanaspecificapproachinitsownright.Wearguethematicanalysisshouldbeconsideredamethodinitsownright.

Oneofthebenefitsofthematicanalysisisitsflexibility.Qualitativeanalyticmethodscanberoughlydividedintotwocamps.Withinthefirst,therearethosetiedto,orstemmingfrom,aparticulartheoreticalorepistemologicalposition.Forsomeofthese-suchasconversationanalysis（[GA]e.g.,Hutchby&Wooffitt,1998）andinterpretativephenomenologicalanalysis（[IPA]e.g.,Smith&Osborn,2003）-thereis（asyet）relativelylimitedvariabilityinhowthemethodisapplied,withinthatframework.Inessence,onerecipeguidesanalysis.Forothersofthese-suchasgroundedtheory（e.g.,Glaser,1992;Srauss&Corbin,1998）,discourseanalysis（[DA]e.g.,Burman&Parker,1993;Potter&Wetherell,1987;Willig,2003）ornarrativeanalysis（e.g.,Murray,2003;Ressman,1993）-therearedifferentmanifestationsofthemethod,fromwithinthebroad

theoreticalframework.Second,therearemethodsthatareessentiallyindependentoftheoryandepistemology,andcanbeappliedacrossarangeoftheoreticalandepistemologicalapproaches.Althoughoften（implicitly）framedasarealist/experientialmethod（e.g.,Aronson,1994;Roulston,2001）,thematicanalysisisactuallyfirmlyinthesecondcamp,andiscompatiblewithbothessentialistandconstructionistparadigmswithinpsychology（wediscussthislater）.Throughitstheoreticalfreedom,thematicanalysisprovidesaflexibleandusefulresearchtool,whichcanpotentiallyprovidearichanddetailed,yetcomplexaccountofdata.

Giventheadvantagesoftheflexibilityofthematicanalysis,itisimportantthatweareclearthatwearenottryingtolimitthisflexibility.However,anabsenceofclearandconciseguidelinesaroundthematicanalysismeansthatthe‘anythinggoes’critiqueofqualitativeresearch（Antaki,Billig,Edwards,&Potter,2002）maywellapplyinsomeinstances.Withthispaper,wehopetostrikeabalancebetweendemarcatingthematicanalysisclearly—i.e.,explainingwhatitis,andhowyoudoit-andensuringflexibilityinrelationtohowitisused,sothatitdoesnotbecomelimitedandconstrained,andloseoneofitskeyadvantages.Indeed,acleardemarcationofthismethodwillbeusefultoensurethatthosewhousethematicanalysiscanmakeactivechoicesabouttheparticularformofanalysistheyareengagedin.Therefore,thispaperseekstocelebratetheflexibilityofthemethod,andprovideavocabularyand‘recipe’forpeopletostartdoingthematicanalysisinawaythatistheoreticallyandmethodologicallysound.3Aswewillshow,whatisimportantisthataswellasapplyingamethodtodata,researchersmaketheir（epistemologicalandother）assumptionsexplicit（Holloway&Todres,2003）.Qualitativepsychologistsneedtobeclearaboutwhattheyaredoingandwhy,andincludetheoften-omitted‘how’theydidtheiranalysisintheirreports（Attride-Stirling,2001）.

Inthispaperweoutline:

whatthematicanalysisis;a6-phaseguidetodoingthematicanalysis;potentialpitfallstoavoidwhendoingthematicanalysis;whatmakesgoodthematicanalysis;andadvantagesanddisadvantagesofthematicanalysis.Throughout,weprovideexamplesfromtheresearchliterature,andourownresearch.Byprovidingexamplesweshowthetypesofresearchquestionsandtopicsthatthematicanalysiscanbeusedtostudy.

Beforewebegin,weneedtodefineafewofthetermsusedthroughoutthepaper.Datacorpusreferstoalldatacollectedforaparticularresearchproject,whiledatasetreferstoallthedatafromthecorpusthatisbeingusedforaparticularanalysis.Therearetwomainwaysofchoosingyourdataset（whichapproachyoutakedependsonwhetheryouarecomingtothedatawithaspecificquestionornot-see‘anumberofdecisions’below）.First,yourdatasetmayconsistofmanyorallindividualdataitemswithinyourdatacorpus.Sb,forexample,inaprojectonfemalegenitalcosmeticsurgery,Virginia’sdatacorpusconsistsofinterviewswithsurgeons,mediaitemsonthetopic,andsurgeonwebsites.Foranyparticularanalysis,herdatasetmightjustbethesurgeoninterviews,justthewebsites（Braun,2005b）,oritmightcombinesurgeondatawithsomemediadata（e.g.,Braun,2005a）.Second,yourdatasetmightbeidentifiedbyaparticularanalyticinterestinsometopicinthedata,andyourdatasetthenbecomesallinstancesinthecorpuswherethattopicisreferredto.SdinVirginia’sexample,ifshewasinterestedinhow‘sexualpleasure’wastalkedabout,herdatasetwouldconsistofallinstancesacrosstheentiredatacorpusthathadsomerelevancetosexualpleasure.Thesetwoapproachesmightsometimesbecombinedtoproducethedataset.Dataitemisusedtorefertoeachindividualpieceofdatacollected,whichtogethermakeupthedatasetorcorpus.Adataiteminthisinstancewouldbeanindividualsurgeoninterview,atelevisiondocumentary,oroneparticularwebsite.Finally,dataextractreferstoanindividualcodedchunkofdata,whichhasbeenidentifiedwithin,andextractedfrom,adataitem.Therewillbemanyofthese,takenfromthroughouttheentiredataset,andonlyaselectionoftheseextractswillfeatureinthefinalanalysis.

Whatisthematicanalysis?

Thematicanalysisisamethodforidentifying,analysing,andreportingpatterns（themes）withindata.Itminimallyorganisesanddescribesyourdatasetin（rich）detail.However,italsooftengoesfurtherthanthis,andinterpretsvariousaspectsoftheresearchtopic（Boyatzis,1998）.Therangeofdifferentpossiblethematicanalyseswillfurtherbehighlightedinrelationtoanumberofdecisionsregardingitasamethod（seebelow）.

Thematicanalysisiswidelyused,butthereisnoclearagreementaboutwhatthematicanalysisisandhowyougoaboutdoingit（seeAtt