What is thematic analysis?
Thematic analysis is an umbrella term given to a range of techniques used to analyse a body of (typically) written data. The aim of thematic analysis is to take a large amount of qualitative data, and capture the very essence of this data into a smaller number of ideas that are presented in a manageable way to enable us to communicate those ideas clearly and critically.
Where does thematic analysis come from?
It's difficult to know exactly where and when thematic analysis started from, and this is made even more confusing in that there isn't one single accepted way of doing thematic analysis. As a set of techniques used to analyse data, thematic analysis has gained notoriety over the last 30 years or so, and some stand out articles in the last 20 years have greatly increased the acessibility of thematic analysis - particularly to researchers who are new to qualitative approaches. This increased accessibility means that it is used more, and therefore we see it more often in published works, leading to an exponential increase in our awareness of it.
At it's heart, thematic analysis comes from content analysis - which largely involves identifying ideas within a dataset and counting up the total number of instances of these ideas. Thematic analysis takes this a step further to interpret the ideas and explore what they mean, and how they fit with a particular context or theory.
What data can I use?
Any data that are written, spoken, or observed can be suitable for thematic analysis. Probably the most popular sources of data are semi-structured interviews and focus groups, as these can provide plenty of depth and detail, and a rich dataset can be achieved that explores issues relevant to a particular group of people.
Other interesting sources of data could be documents that already exist such as newspapers or medical case notes, documents that are generated for the purpose of the study such as diaries, online forums, observations of behaviour, and open ended survey questions.
What should I use thematic analysis for?
- To explore issues or concepts that we know little about
- To gain understanding of a particular group's experience e.g. mental wellbeing in traveller communities
- To explore ideas or theories from previous research in a different group or population