Thematic Analysis

Thematic Analysis
Thematic analysis in its simplest form is a categorizing strategy for qualitative data. Researchers
review their data, make notes and begin to sort it into categories. Styled as a data analytic
strategy, it helps researchers move their analysis from a broad reading of the data towards
discovering patterns and developing themes. While researchers debate whether thematic analysis
is a complete "method" per se, it is a process that can be used with many kinds of qualitative data,
and with many goals in mind. For that reason, thematic analysis is often implicitly and explicitly a
part of other types of data analysis including discourse analysis, grounded theory, and case study
As Boyatzis (1998) writes in Transforming Qualitative Information, thematic analysis is a process
of "encoding qualitative information" (p. vii). Thus the researcher develops "codes," words or
phrases that serve as labels for sections of data. Depending on the methodology and research
question, codes can come in many shapes and sizes. Referring to a set of codes, Boyatzis explains,
“This may be a list of themes, a complex model with themes, indicators, and qualifications that are
causally related; or something in between these two forms” (vii). Boyatzis shows how one could
take a variety of approaches to using thematic analysis and essentially get the same rigor. He
contrasts theory-driven codes, derived from the researcher's or other existing theories; inductive
codes, derived bottom-up from the researcher's reading of the data; and prior-research driven
codes. He argues that all approaches have something to offer qualitative data analysis.
Thematic analysis is flexible and what researchers do with the themes once they uncover them
differs based on the intentions of the research and the process of analysis. Many researchers use
thematic analysis as a way of getting close to their data and developing some deeper appreciation
of the content. Researchers interested in looking for broader patterns in their work in order to then
conduct a more fine grained analysis often use thematic analysis as a first step. Thematic analysis
is not tied to any particular epistemology or discipline.
Narrative Analysis
Narrative analysis, like the name implies, centers around the study of stories or accounts – usually
of individuals, but also of groups, societies, and cultures. Catherine Kohler Reissman (2008) opens
her book Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences with a story from a second grade classroom.
The teacher has a list of criteria on the board for authoring a personal narrative essay including:
“make sure the events are in the right order; use the pronouns “I’” and “me” to tell the story;
make sure the beginning is interesting; the narrative sticks to the topic; there are details that tell
what, who, why, when, and where; and the last part tells how you felt. (p. 1)” By citing such a
regimented practice with clear rules and boundaries about how to produce a narrative account,
Reissman highlights how the production of narrative accounts, both personal and extra-individual,
are structured practices that are inculcated early on.
Narrative analysis or narrative methods are a product of what was termed the "narrative turn" in
social science research, which has been described and analyzed as a response to the lack of
human stories in traditional social science in the 1960’s. Early works delineating the historical
foundations of narrative methods included works on life histories and oral narratives. The focus of
these methods were life stories that described the personal experiences of poverty, inequality,
sexism, and many other social and cultural experiences (Chase, 2005).
Embedded in Reissman’s (2008) approaches to narrative analysis are four different analytic
approaches: thematic analysis, structural analysis, dialogic/performance analysis, and visual
analysis. Thematic analysis relies on categorizing accounts or aspects of accounts that are being
told. Structural analysis looks into the ways in which the narratives are structured and what the
language in the stories does both on the textual as well as the cultural level. Dialogic/performance
analysis focuses on the difficulty in analyzing accounts that are co-constructed or performed.
Lastly, visual analysis focuses on the analysis of all visual media including art, video, and digital
media.
Researchers can collect data for narrative analysis using any means that involves capturing an
account. Common means are through video, interview, and participant observation though none of
these means are mutually exclusive. In addition, there is dispute among researchers who conduct
narrative analysis about whether the product on narrative analysis should also be narrative. This
relates to how stories are not merely told by the participants in research, but also by and of the
researchers themselves. The degree to which these stories are managed or excluded are discussed
frequently as matter of reaching the intended research audience (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000).
The distinctions between narrative analysis and discourse analysis are subtle and blurred with the
former’s focus on stories and the latter’s focus on discourse, which does not imply that specific
stories or accounts are being shared. Researchers including Reissman (2008) often employ the
term discourse to describe either what they are analyzing or what the accounts themselves appeal
to. The popularity and acceptability of narrative versus discourse analysis also appears to vary
across disciplinary and geographic lines.

Thematic Analysis

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