Thematic Analysis

Abstract

Thematic analysis is a method of qualitative data analysis that was first described in the 1970s (Joffe, Harper and Thompson (eds), Qualitative Research Methods in Mental Health and Psychotherapy: A Guide for Students and Practitioners, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012) but became more prominent at the end of the 1990s with researchers such as Boyatzis (1998) and Hayes (1997) (as cited in Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2012). Thematic analysis. In H. Cooper (Ed.), APA Handbook of Research Methods in Psychology (vol.2) (pp. 57–71). American Psychological Association.). As qualitfvecome more accepted across social science disciplines and now across health professions education, the need for systematic methods to analyze qualitative sets is more accentuated (Castleberry and Nolen, Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning 10:807–815, 2018). ( Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2012). Thematic analysis. In H. Cooper (Ed.), APA Handbook of Research Methods in Psychology (vol.2) (pp. 57–71). American Psychological Association.) highlighted that thematic analysis is “an accessible, flexible, and increasingly popular method of qualitative data analysis” (p. 57). Although thematic analysis shares similarities with other methodologies that have systematic processes for analyzing data such as Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis or grounded theory, it does not “require the detailed theoretical and technological knowledge” of these approaches (Braun and Clarke, Qualitative Research in Psychology 3:77–101, 2006). However, (Braun and Clarke, Qualitative Research in Psychology 3:77–101, 2006) emphasized that the theoretical position of the study needs to be made explicit, as there are inherent assumptions regarding the nature of the data that has been analyzed.