Thematic Analysis
Definition of Thematic Analysis
Working Principle of Thematic Analysis
Different Scenarios that Thematic Analysis (TA) can handle;
- You can select TA if you want to identify the patterns in the data.
- You can also select TA if you are a newbie to qualitative research.
- You should go for TA if you want to collect data by using open-ended questionnaires.
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Thematic Analysis |
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Pros
of Thematic Analysis |
Cons
of Thematic Analysis |
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Analysis of text in the context
of different theories is among the most helpful feature of this analysis. ·
The researcher can analyse the
abundance of data in a short time. ·
It is a combination of both personal
and theoretical knowledge. ·
TA can develop multiple themes
from a short text. ·
The availability of two versatile
approaches, the Inductive and Deductive approaches, make it important
statistical analysis techniques. ·
Flexibility and a wide range of
analytical tools help researchers to sort the qualitative responses. ·
A User-Friendly method of
analysis is another advantage that a student must know before selecting it. ·
People prefer TA due to its
ability to interpret data by making attractive themes. ·
TA produces results that target
the general public, which fits it in both pros and cons categories. ·
It offers to pinpoint, record patterns and
examine features in data analysis. ·
Again, it works by making themes of data
sets. Later, these themes of the data sets become the categories of the
analysis. ·
The six-phase coding process in
the thematic study helps to get the meaningful pattern for analysis. ·
The name of six phases that help
the survival of TA in the researcher’s world are as follows; 1)Familiarisation
with the raw data 2)
Practice of giving code to different categories 3)
The act of searching themes among different codes 4)
Reviewing of the themes 5)
Naming the themes 6)
Reporting the final results |
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Flexibility imparts broadening of
the topic. ·
It often provides a limited
interpretation of the text. ·
It cannot provide little
information about the detailed procedure. ·
It often provides generic
information, which in most cases decreases the efficiency of PhD level
thesis. ·
It is one of the poorly
demarcated methods of analysis in Psychology. ·
Often fails to retain the sense
of continuity or contradiction in psychological researches. ·
It takes too much time to sort
the responses of the unstructured interviews. ·
In some cases, TA users complain
about the biasness of results in this form of analysis. ·
Sometimes, the reliability of the
results is doubtful. The researcher can shoe bias behaviour in the
development of the themes. ·
Even in this qualitative method
of data analysis, you can find the results of your choice without even
knowing the actual analysis method. ·
An important weakness of this
method is that it does not prove the language used in developing the theme. ·
The flexibility of the TA induces
research issues like inconsistency in the data analysis method. Transparency
of results is another important weakness often seen in the data analysed by
using TA. |
Hence, the above section details the pros and cons of using Thematic analysis in the data analysis. As stated in the previous section, the most important thing about the TA is that it can be the best method of analysis if you are a newbie. It has many things that make it different from other analysis techniques. Some other qualitative analysis includes;
1) Narrative analysis
2) Descriptive analysis
3) Discourse analysis
4) Content analysis
5) Ground theory
The director of essay writing services said that if you are a beginner, you will not find any fault in the thematic analysis. But, after using any of the techniques mentioned above, you may come across many weaknesses of TA. Hence, the selection of the data analysis technique does not depend on the person’s choice. Rather, this selection depends on the many other factors, like;
- The time available for the study
- The protocol of the study
- The form of raw data
- The expertise of the researcher
- The nature of the study