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Step 3: Generating Themes: Turning Codes Into Themes

The document outlines a step-by-step process for generating and refining themes from coded data in thematic analysis. It emphasizes the importance of reviewing, defining, and naming themes to ensure they accurately represent the data. Finally, it describes the structure for writing up the analysis, including methodology and findings related to the identified themes.

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7 views2 pages

Step 3: Generating Themes: Turning Codes Into Themes

The document outlines a step-by-step process for generating and refining themes from coded data in thematic analysis. It emphasizes the importance of reviewing, defining, and naming themes to ensure they accurately represent the data. Finally, it describes the structure for writing up the analysis, including methodology and findings related to the identified themes.

Uploaded by

biggykhair
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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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.

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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