Thematic analysis

A topic in research methodology

Thematic analysis is a term used to describe some approaches to analysing qualitative data. Thematic analysis involves analysing data to identify, characterise and exemplify themes. However, the themes themselves may be brought to the data by the researchers, or ‘discovered’ in the data (see the figure above).

'Discovered' implies a search for themes assumed to be inherent in the data being analysed (cf. grounded theory research). This raises the question of how the analyst can identify such themes, as this suggests a process of ‘induction’ – how does the analyst have the necessary ‘theoretical sensitivity’ (to borrow a term from grounded theory methodology).

The analyst has to interpret the data in terms of categories, at different levels of generality, that both (a) relate to the research objectives and questions; and (b) reflect the content of the data set.

An example from medical education

Darbyshire and Baker (2012) report a “systematic review and thematic analysis of cinema in medical education”.

Purpose

“The goal of this review is to provide a comprehensive overview of the literature on the use of cinema in healthcare education.”
“Using thematic analysis, the review also considers the areas examined by the literature and the extent to which they are covered in order to identify topics that have already been investigated and gaps that can be explored in further study.” p.28

Darbyshire and Baker, 2012: 28

Analysis

"Each article was read at least once to determine relevance and then again to gather information pertinent to the review question and including: …theme (e.g., chronic illness or the doctor patient relationship)…

This information was collated and each component thematically analysed.” p.29

Darbyshire and Baker, 2012: 28

The language discussing the identification of themes by reading seems to treat the process as a relatively unproblematic issue.

Perhaps the analysis process seems this way because

(a) the researchers are inevitably 'biased' buy their prior experiences: including the influence of norms and traditions in a field, and any literature review undertaken (one reason why the literature review is often deferred in grounded theory studies);

(b) the process of carrying out qualitative analysis is a formalised version of something we have all learnt to do firm early in life – we all act as qualitative data analysts every time we have a conversation, read a book, listen to a news report… This might be worth bearing in mind when considering the themes researchers discover in their data.

In this case:

Themes identified:

In this study a range of themes were identified

mental health related topics

• adolescent psychiatry
• biopsychosocial formulation and the Mental State Examination
• family and marriage counselling
• personality disorders
• psychiatry and the media
• schizophrenia

the technical aspects of using cinema for teaching

human sexuality

clinical pharmacology

paediatrics

general medicine

AIDS

group counselling

Some of the social determinants of health

• alcohol
• poverty
• domestic violence

Topics around professionalism such as

• ethics
• the end of life
• bereavement
• the doctor patient relationship
• empathy and altruism

The more general topics

• using cinema for instruction
• medical humanities and narrative medicine

It is not intended to question the analysis presented in this paper, but simply to raise the point that (as always) the categories formed by the analysts had to make sense to them, so the themes identified in research are always limited by the fund of interpretive resources brought to the work by the analyst.

One might wonder what an analysis of the same canon of films might look like if analysed for very different purposes by someone with expertise in script writing or cinematography.

Source cited:

Darbyshire, D., & Baker, P. (2012). A systematic review and thematic analysis of cinema in medical education. Medical Humanities, 38