Thematic analysis in 

qualitative research is the main approach to analyze the data. Research requires rigorous
methods for the data analysis, this requires a methodology that can help facilitate objectivity. Rigorous thematic
analysis can bring objectivity to the data analysis in qualitative research. Some researchers believe that thematic
analysis is not a separate method of data analysis but rather it can help every qualitative research in the analysis.
Other researchers think that it is separate method like phenomenology, ethnography, and grounded theory.

What is qualitative research?

The use of qualitative research is very much common today in the fields of natural sciences, psychology, sociology,
humanity, education, social sciences, and history. On the other hand it is also used in economics, journalism,
marketing, and business studies. The aim is to study characters, behaviors, feelings, emotions, attitudes, and
metaphors. More commonly qualitative research is linked with the study of human behavior. Qualitative research
investigates through observation and collects non-numeric data.

Why thematic analysis in qualitative research

 The approach to analyze data in qualitative research cannot be the same as in the quantitative research.
Quantitative research focuses on numeric data and therefore the aim to achieve objectivity is far easier
than in the qualitative research. As we can see that the qualitative research has a wider application there
need to be a system that can make it trustworthy.
 The major criticism about qualitative research is lack of generalizability in the findings of these studies.
The use of thematic analysis in qualitative research aims at improving the generalizability of the study.
Since qualitative research has been emerged as one of the main method of conducting research there
should have to be exhaustion so that the results of a qualitative research are valid and generalizable.
 In qualitative research data analysis is the most complex part of study. There need to be a framework that
can help facilitate analysis of the data. Thematic analysis in qualitative research provides a sophisticated
tool to achieve that goal.

How thematic analysis works

You have qualitative data that needs to be analyzed, in thematic analysis you identify themes in your data, label
themes, organize them, analyze them, report in your research paper. It means that it is a systematic approach to
analyzing data in the qualitative research.

1. The first step in thematic analysis is to know your data and understand the elements that are more
obvious in it. Know the type of data like whether it is obtained form questionnaires, interviews,
observations etc. Understand and reflect on your data so you get familiar with it. You can reflect your
thoughts as well about the data. Write down your thoughts so that you can later use them when you are
analyzing the data. Also knowing about the data means that you are well assured that your data is
credible and have been obtained in the best possible manner. You should make sure that no data is
missing or lost.
2. Know about the interesting aspects of the data set that can become the basis of your themes. Document
these main ideas, codes, or themes from your data.
3. Reflect upon the data and the themes that you have generated in the previous step. Now delve deep into
the possible changes that you can make to the initial themes. The themes should be mutually exclusive
and exhaustive. The themes should cover all the data set.
4. Review your themes and review your first set of data that you received. The aim is to make sure that
none of the data has left from analyzing during these steps. Decide about the final themes for analysis.
The theme should adequately define the data that is allocated to it.
5. Now name each theme and document them. It should be noted here that themes are identities that define
a specific concept that is bound by one meaning. Themes provide identity to an experience and make it
meaningful. Themes should have meaning in relation to the research question otherwise they are of no
value. In this step identify the data that can be categorized and analyzed under each theme. All the data
that is relevant to the research question should be analyzed under some theme. If there is data left that is
related to the research question you need to have another theme.
6. Now you are in a position to analyze each theme in detail and produce a written report of it. The data
should be analyzed across the themes and none of the important data should be left behind. A written
report should be developed for this data analysis. The analysis report should present not only the
analysis but interpretation of the analysis of data

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 Them
atic Analysis of Qualitative Data

How to achieve trustworthiness in thematic

analysis
You can manage to achieve trustworthiness by following below guidelines:

1. Document each and every step of the collection, organization and analysis of the data as it will add to the
accountability of your research. Provide data trail and record it so that you or others can verify the data.
2. Repeat each step so you can make sure that you did not miss any of the important information
throughout the process of collection, organization, and analysis of data.
3. Make sure that your findings are based on the data and its interpretation and its not some personal belief.
This will add to the confirmability of your research. The researcher can include how and why certain
conclusion is drawn to ensure confirmability.
4. Brief each member of the research every step that is taken so that they can review. This will help in
avoiding any error in analyzing the data. Self-accountability is necessary to ensure accuracy in research.
5. Researchers can use any software to analyze the data. The use of software ensure sophisticated analysis
of data and it also ensures that similar analysis techniques have been applied throughout the research.
Software can analyze in depth and complex concepts can be easily understood through the use of
software.

When to use thematic analysis

Thematic analysis is a good approach to research where you’re trying to find out
something about people’s views, opinions, knowledge, experiences or values from a set
of qualitative data – for example, interview transcripts, social media profiles, or survey
responses.

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Some types of research questions you might use thematic analysis to answer:

 How do patients perceive doctors in a hospital setting?

 What are young women’s experiences on dating sites?
 What are non-experts’ ideas and opinions about climate change?
 How is gender constructed in high school history teaching?

To answer any of these questions, you would collect data from a group of relevant
participants and then analyze it. Thematic analysis allows you a lot of flexibility in
interpreting the data, and allows you to approach large data sets more easily by sorting
them into broad themes.

However, it also involves the risk of missing nuances in the data. Thematic analysis is
often quite subjective and relies on the researcher’s judgement, so you have to reflect
carefully on your own choices and interpretations.

Pay close attention to the data to ensure that you’re not picking up on things that are not
there – or obscuring things that are.

Different approaches to thematic analysis

Once you’ve decided to use thematic analysis, there are different approaches to
consider.

There’s the distinction between inductive and deductive approaches:

 An inductive approach involves allowing the data to determine your themes.

 A deductive approach involves coming to the data with some preconceived
themes you expect to find reflected there, based on theory or existing knowledge.

Ask yourself: Does my theoretical framework give me a strong idea of what kind of

themes I expect to find in the data (deductive), or am I planning to develop my own
framework based on what I find (inductive)?

There’s also the distinction between a semantic and a latent approach:

 A semantic approach involves analyzing the explicit content of the data.

 A latent approach involves reading into the subtext and assumptions underlying
the data.

Ask yourself: Am I interested in people’s stated opinions (semantic) or in what their

statements reveal about their assumptions and social context (latent)?

After you’ve decided thematic analysis is the right method for analyzing your data, and
you’ve thought about the approach you’re going to take, you can follow the six steps
developed by Braun and Clarke.

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Step 1: Familiarization
The first step is to get to know our data. It’s important to get a thorough overview of all
the data we collected before we start analyzing individual items.

This might involve transcribing audio, reading through the text and taking initial notes,
and generally looking through the data to get familiar with it.

Step 2: Coding
Next up, we need to code the data. Coding means highlighting sections of our text –
usually phrases or sentences – and coming up with shorthand labels or “codes” to
describe their content.

Let’s take a short example text. Say we’re researching perceptions of climate change
among conservative voters aged 50 and up, and we have collected data through a
series of interviews. An extract from one interview looks like this:

Coding qualitative data

Interview extract Codes

Personally, I’m not sure. I think the climate is changing, sure, but I  Uncertainty

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Coding qualitative data

Interview extract Codes

don’t know why or how. People say you should trust the experts,  Acknowledgement of climate change
but who’s to say they don’t have their own reasons for pushing this  Distrust of experts
narrative? I’m not saying they’re wrong, I’m just saying there’s  Changing terminology
reasons not to 100% trust them. The facts keep changing – it used to be
called global warming.

In this extract, we’ve highlighted various phrases in different colors corresponding to

different codes. Each code describes the idea or feeling expressed in that part of the
text.

At this stage, we want to be thorough: we go through the transcript of every interview

and highlight everything that jumps out as relevant or potentially interesting. As well as
highlighting all the phrases and sentences that match these codes, we can keep adding
new codes as we go through the text.

After we’ve been through the text, we collate together all the data into groups identified
by code. These codes allow us to gain a a condensed overview of the main points and
common meanings that recur throughout the data.

Step 3: Generating themes

Next, we look over the codes we’ve created, identify patterns among them, and start
coming up with themes.

Themes are generally broader than codes. Most of the time, you’ll combine several
codes into a single theme. In our example, we might start combining codes into themes
like this:

Turning codes into themes

Codes Theme

 Uncertainty Uncertainty
 Leave it to the experts
 Alternative explanations

 Changing terminology Distrust of experts

 Distrust of scientists
 Resentment toward experts
 Fear of government control

 Incorrect facts Misinformation

 Misunderstanding of science
 Biased media sources

At this stage, we might decide that some of our codes are too vague or not relevant
enough (for example, because they don’t appear very often in the data), so they can be
discarded.

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Other codes might become themes in their own right. In our example, we decided that
the code “uncertainty” made sense as a theme, with some other codes incorporated into
it.

Again, what we decide will vary according to what we’re trying to find out. We want to
create potential themes that tell us something helpful about the data for our purposes.

Step 4: Reviewing themes

Now we have to make sure that our themes are useful and accurate representations of
the data. Here, we return to the data set and compare our themes against it. Are we
missing anything? Are these themes really present in the data? What can we change to
make our themes work better?

If we encounter problems with our themes, we might split them up, combine them,
discard them or create new ones: whatever makes them more useful and accurate.

For example, we might decide upon looking through the data that “changing
terminology” fits better under the “uncertainty” theme than under “distrust of experts,”
since the data labelled with this code involves confusion, not necessarily distrust.

Step 5: Defining and naming themes

Now that you have a final list of themes, it’s time to name and define each of them.

Defining themes involves formulating exactly what we mean by each theme and figuring
out how it helps us understand the data.

Naming themes involves coming up with a succinct and easily understandable name for
each theme.

For example, we might look at “distrust of experts” and determine exactly who we mean
by “experts” in this theme. We might decide that a better name for the theme is “distrust
of authority” or “conspiracy thinking”.

Step 6: Writing up
Finally, we’ll write up our analysis of the data. Like all academic texts, writing up a
thematic analysis requires an introduction to establish our research question, aims and
approach.

We should also include a methodology section, describing how we collected the data

(e.g. through semi-structured interviews or open-ended survey questions) and
explaining how we conducted the thematic analysis itself.

The results or findings section usually addresses each theme in turn. We describe how
often the themes come up and what they mean, including examples from the data as
evidence. Finally, our conclusion explains the main takeaways and shows how the
analysis has answered our research question.

In our example, we might argue that conspiracy thinking about climate change is
widespread among older conservative voters, point out the uncertainty with which many
voters view the issue, and discuss the role of misinformation in respondents’
perceptions.

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Caulfield, J. (2022, November 25). How to Do Thematic Analysis | Step-by-Step Guide &
Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved December 8, 2022, from
https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/thematic-analysis/

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