Qualitative Analysis : Focus is Thematic Analysis

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Qualitative Analysis Focus is Thematic Analysis

• Dr Sal Watt

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Interviewing So how was it for you

• Last week interviewing
• How many interviews do we already have?
• Group Reflexive Debrief / Share Practice
• What worked / didnt?
• His/Los
• Problems
• Any Anxieties
• Did you enjoy the process?
• What did you learn?
• What are we going to do with the data?

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Objectives

• To gain a wider understanding of the reflexive
  process and its impact on qualitative analysis
• To gain a general understanding of various
  research analysis techniques
• To understand the theory and how to conduct
  practically a thematic analysis

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Backtracking on last week ..

• Qualitative data rich / thick data
• Explicit knowledge (spoken)
• Tacit knowledge (unspoken cultural norm e.g.
  nonverbal behaviour)
• Verstehen ? Worldview ? empathetic understanding
  (Weber, 1949)
• Acktueller ? objective observation
• Erklander ? reflexive / engaging with
  subject/topic stepping inside the participants
  frame of reference

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Writing Stories .

• Behar (2003) says
• we write commentaries that our informants share
  with us about their lives.. the stories of
  those whose voices often go unheard
• Stories ? narratives subjective account
• Think back to your childhood memories / antics
• We always give a version of the truth
• Memories play tricks
• We sanitise our versions
• Qualitative analysis largely relies on a
  researchers interpretation (although some
  quantitative analysis of qualitative data can
  also be undertaken e.g. NUDIST package)

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Reflexivity

• Participants story subjective account (1) ?
• Researchers interpretation subjective account
  (2) ?
• Reader has to accept the account on trust OR
  reject it ? relies heavily on reflexive account
  to make that decision
• Behar (2003) ? really real ? how the researcher
  represents participants
• Huge responsibility (or it should be!)
• Highly reflexive we deconstruct our subjective
  role in the research process
• What biases could a researcher bring to an
  interview situation?
• What assumptions have you already made around our
  research question i.e. 3rd year HE students /
  stress ?
• Good strategy is to keep a research diary
  throughout the whole process ? honestly record
  your thoughts and feelings

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So how should we analyse qualitative data?

• Discourse Analysis
• Grounded Theory
• Thematic Analysis
• IPA
• Interpretivist Analysis tends to embrace multi
  approach ? amalgam
• Much overlap around data analysis techniques

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Consider the following quote

• I have worked on .. (Text withheld). 

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Reading between the lines

• How do you interpret this extract
• First of all what sex is the speaker do you
  think?
• What explicit knowledge is being conveyed?
• What implicit knowledge is indicated?
• What would your next question be to this
  participant?
• How do your colleagues respond to these changes
  
• 3rd person - allows the emphasis to be taken away
  from the participant

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What about .

• I love my ..(text withheld)
• What do you interpret from this quote
• Safety in numbers
• Justification and Verification through group
  identity?

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Discourse Analysis

• Contemporarily 2 leading approaches exist both
  share concern around how we use language
• Discursive Psychology
• Foucauldian Discourse Analysis
• Discourse Analysis traditionally looked to
  language as representative of an individuals
  attitudes and beliefs
• Criticised as too cognitivist in approach relying
  on the unfounded assumption of language and
  representation
• Traditional Cognitive focus
• Talk ? Perception ? Reality ? Objects of thought
  ?
• Enduring Cognitive structures rigidity
• Discursive Psychology moves away from enduring
  cognitive structures ? flexibility of language
  e.g. the way it is used in naturally occurring
  situations
• Discursive practices performative qualites of
  discourse
• Think about the different ways you talk to your
  peers, parents, grandparents,tutors do you
  converse differently?

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Foucauldian Discourse Analysis

• Locates the individual in a subjective / material
  reality discursive practices
• Cultural discourses socially locate individuals ?
  expectation around how we should think, feel and
  behave e.g. gender is socially constructed ?
  discourse of gender specific behaviour
• Foucault talks about the circularity of knowledge
  that produces / enculturates knowledge -
  socialised norms / self-fulfilling
• Tell me what do you think of when I say the word
  obesity
• What about motherhood ?
• Individuals are socially and psychologically
  primed

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Grounded Theory

• Deductive theorising testing existing
  theories/hypothesis e.g. replication/
  generalisation ? Top Down
• Inductive theorising is Bottom Up
• Seeing whats out there and grounding or
  building theory based on what is observed or
  found
• If you think about this, its what we do all the
  time
• Imagine you were about to book a summer holiday
• Research destination / tour operators/ internet
  options
• Come up with a destination/operator ? your would
  theorise this was the best deal ?
  accommodation/flights/cheapest rate or whatever
• Qualitative data ? process of developing theory
  is ongoing
• Theory builds on theory depending on the data
  that evolves
• Flexible approach / data unfold
• Research question could change direction
  depending on what unfolds

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Thematic Analysis

• Process of extracting key themes
• Read, read and read again the transcript
• Highly familiar with the text and the way things
  are said
• Generate as many themes as possible / text holds
• Identify a new theme alongside a code e.g. number
  or letter
• Produce a large number which are then collapsed
  down
• Collapsing down process will identify which
  themes are connected or overlap
• Collapsing down allows the data to become more
  manageable
• Practical example will show you how we do this

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IPA

• Investigate how individuals attribute meaning
• Through the individuals perception / experiences
  
• Empathetic understanding of an individuals
  worldview
• 2 stage interpretation process - double
  hermeneutics (dh)
• Process involves participants making sense /
  negotiating their world
• Researcher similarly makes sense of the way in
  which a participant makes sense/negotiates their
  world dh
• IPA committed to the individual as a cognitive,
  linguistic, affective and physical being
• Holistic approach considers thought, speech and
  emotion
• Highly ecological

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Amalgam Interpretivism

• Methodology researchers philosophy of how
  research should be conducted
• Methods techniques we use to collect data
• Methodologies can converge ? pick n mix
  approach depending on the context and the
  researchers preference
• Key is to be reflexive and acknowledge our
  methodology and be able to justify it
• E.g. My take would be ? Interpretivism
• Informed by ethnography conversations,
  interviews, observations documents etc and hands
  on experience of a culture
• This would involve analysis that necessarily
  includes
• Context Analysis (culture),
• Discursive /Foucauldian Analysis (quotes/
  repetition of spoken words/themes, the ways in
  which language informs social norms
• Content Analysis (wording/ phraseolgy of
  documents),
• Grounded Theory findings would necessarily
  ground my thoughts / theory
• IPA how individuals social construct meaning
• Amalgam of various approaches

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Its not just the words what about the culture
.?

• We will, by the way . Text withheld

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Thematic Analysis

• Two approaches
• First is to read several times and extract the
  key themes that are immediately apparent
• Danger here is that we might simply extract what
  we expect to find
• Research then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy
  around our hypothesis
• This route would not necessarily pick up on the
  silences in the data or its richness
• You need to consider your data holistically so
  the second approach is ..

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Thematic Analysis A labour of love

• Re-Reading allows a deep understanding / analysis
  
• However small or seemingly insignificant generate
  as many themes as possible (50/100)
• Multiple themes more likely to ensure that all
  data represented
• Process of collapsing the themes into each other
• Consider ..

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Weighty issues

• We will, . (text withheld)

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Lets have a go .

• We will, . (text withheld)

• 1. Time
• 2. Intention
• 3. Our section (x 2)
• 4. Dieting
• 5. Foods (Junk)
• 6. Force (forceably)
• 7. Power
• 8. Staff member
• 9. Free Will (shove)
• 10. Insistence
• 11. Coming months
• 12. Miscellaneous
• 13. Metaphor (window)
• 14. Identity (our section)
• 15. Collectivity

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Collapsing themes down

• 1. Time
• 2. Intention
• 3. Our section (x 2)
• 4. Dieting
• 5. Foods (Junk)
• 6. Force (forceably)
• 7. Power
• 8. Staff member
• 9. Free Will (shove)
• 10. Insistence
• 11. Coming months
• 12. Miscellaneous
• 13. Metaphor (window)
• 14. Identity (our section)
• 15. Collectivity

• Timespan
• 1, 2, 11
• Food
• 4, 5, 6, 7
• Section
• 3, 8, 14, 15
• Collective Identity
• 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 15
• Power
• 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
• Loss of power
• 2, 4, 9, 10, 12, 13
• 15 ? 6 Themes

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And again ..

• 1 Timespan
• 1, 2, 11
• 2 Food
• 4, 5, 6, 7
• 3 Section
• 3, 8, 14, 15
• 4 Collective Identity
• 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 15
• 5 Power
• 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
• 6 Loss of power
• 2, 4, 9, 10, 12, 13

• 1. Timespan 1,2,11
• while you are with us
• 2. Collective Identity
• 3,6,8,11,14,15
• We are a team..
• 3. Strength in numbers
• 3,6,7,8,9,10,11,14,15
• 4. Loss of Identity
• 2,4,5,6,7,10,12,13
• 6 to 4 themes

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We could conclude that,

• To ensure cultural immersion into a work
  environment it is essential to be respectful of
  the norms of that existing culture. In this
  instance power was exerted by the researched
  group through ritualistic practices around eating
  habits (food consumption)

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IPA ( see Chapter 4 Smith and Osborn)

• Repetitive reading of transcript
• Left hand margin anything of interest/
  significance data, use of language, nonverbals
  / quotes etc.
• Right hand margin emergent themes
• Higher level of abstraction ? Psychological
  terminology ? theoretical connections
• Ensure balance between the richness of what has
  been said when making theoretical connections
• Remember we need to keep it really real (Behar,
  2003)

Annotate Initial things That Are
Interesting Or significant
Emergent Themes
Joe !
. ? (laughs)
!
Aggression Not who I am ? Identity
Anger pain struggle to accept self

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So you have a go ..

• I have not got a problem with .(text withheld)

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Thought for the week when analysing

• Behar (200316) suggests,
• we go to find the stories we didnt know we were
  looking for in the first place.
• Huge responsibility to represent the people
  behind our rich data with respect and sensitivity
  and as accurately as we can