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LSE Department of Methodology,

MY428/528 - LT 2014

Qualitative Text Analysis

Course Convenor: Aude Bicquelet ([email protected])

Office Hours: Thursday 11:30-13:30

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DESCRIPTIVE APPROACHES:

Thematic and Qualitative Content Analysis

Week 3

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1. Definitions

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2. Thematic Analysis (TA) & Co.

TA & other Methods

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3. Models & Approaches

- Classical/Network/Hybrid

- Qualitative Content Analysis

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4. Trustworthiness & Robustness

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Lecture Outline

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Definitions and

Ambitions

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(Boyatzis, 1998)

- A process to be used with qualitative information. It is not a another

qualitative method but a process that can be used with most, if not

all qualitative methods (methods of data collection).

- Thematic analysis is a process for encoding qualitative information.

What is Thematic Analysis?

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Plethora of definition

• ‘Thematic analyses seek to unearth the themes salient in a text at different

levels (…) (Attride-Stirling, 2001).

• Thematic analysis is a search for themes that emerge as being important to

the description of the phenomenon. The process involves the identification

of themes through ‘careful reading and re-reading of the data’. It is a form

of pattern recognition within the data, where emerging themes become the

categories for analysis. (Fereday & Cochrane, 2006)

• ‘A research method for the subjective interpretation of the content of text

data through the systematic classification process of coding and identifying

themes or patterns’ (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005)

What is Thematic Analysis?

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What’s the ambition of TA?

o To classify qualitative data through a transparent, coherent and consistent

coding strategy.

o To generate classifications or typologies allowing to capture the richness of the

phenomenon under study.

What is Thematic Analysis?

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What kind of data can be analysed with TA?

• Interviews/focus group transcripts

• Field notes

• Parliamentary debates

• Policy documents

• Public consultations

• Newspaper articles

• Pictures

• Paintings

• TV ads (…)

What is Thematic Analysis?

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What can be coded?

Themes/Topics

Types of arguments

Values

Attitudes

Emotions

Group dynamic

Colour, Posture, character (paintings…)

Mixed: i.e. topics + values + rhetorical appeal to emotion

(…)

What is Thematic Analysis?

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What to look for in the data?

Repetitions

Similarities/differences

‘Indigenous’ themes or words

Metaphors and analogies

Transitions

Theory-related material

(…)

What is Thematic Analysis?

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What is a theme?

A theme is a fundamental concept (or idea) that we are trying to extract from the data in order to describe or explain it.

A theme may be identified at the manifest level (directly observable in the information) or at the latent level (underlying the information).

A theme is an outcome of coding (coding is the process of looking for themes)

The compilation or integration of a number of codes in a study is often called a

codebook , code manual, coding scheme or coding framework.

Concepts and Jargon

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Corpus: Collection of materials which is determined in advance by the analyst and on

which work is being done (Bauer & Gaskell, 2009)

Units of analysis: the entity on which the interpretation of the study will focus (‘speech-

act’; article; whole document…)

Units of coding: the most basic segment, or element, of the raw data or information that

can be assessed in a meaningful way regarding the phenomenon (paragraphs; sentences;

words…)

Concepts and Jargon

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Why am I confused about the difference between a theme, a code, a label, a

category, an incident, a data-chunk, a global theme, basic theme…?

o It’s not you! It’s everybody!

o Social scientists use different words to refer to the same thing or refer to different

things with similar words.

o ie: - Glaser and Strauss talk about themes that need to be sorted into categories

- Attride-Stirling refers to basic themes and organizing themes

- Miles and Huberman refer to codes and thematic units

- We refer to sub-categories and categories

Terminological Issues

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How can I survive this terminological madness?

Be clear and consistent about your low-order and high-order analytical

strategy. (i.e: I will look for themes which I will arrange into categories).

Use established jargon (i.e; Using the model developed by Attride-Stirling,

my basic themes will be sorted into organizing themes)

Embrace the semantic confusion and create new jargon

(I will look for micro-units which I will organize into super-galactic units…)

Terminological Issues

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EXAMPLES

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Thematic Analysis & Co.

TA & other Methods

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• From a purely chronological perspective, TA was developed based on

some of the principles of Argumentation analysis ( Toulmin, 1958)

• Argumentation analysis aims to provide a structured method for analysing

negotiation processes and to disentangle them.

• Thematic Analysis aims to explore the understanding of an issue rather

than to reconcile conflicting definitions of a problem (see Attride-Sterling

2001).

TA and other Methods

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• From a purely epistemological perspective, TA very much resembles Grounded Theory.

• Grounded Theory involves the generation of theory from data. Rather than beginning with a hypothesis, data is collected and analysed through constant iterations between the researcher and the data until saturation is reached (See Glaser and Strauss, 1967).

• Thematic Analysis: If grounded theory is based around developing a theory that can explain findings, thematic analysis aims to summarise/encapsulate the data (not necessarily with the aim of developing a new theory).

TA and other Methods

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• From a purely methodological perspective, TA is very much akin to

Qualitative Content Analysis or Qualitative Analysis of Content.

• Qualitative Content Analysis ‘goes beyond merely counting words to

examining language intensely for the purpose of classifying large amounts of

text into a large number of categories that represent similar meanings.

(Hsieh & Shannon, 2005)

• Thematic Analysis: shares the same aims; uses very similar approach(es).

TA and other Methods

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Content Analysis

Definition

“A research Technique for the

objective, systematic, and

quantitative description of the

manifest content of communication”

(Berelson, 1952).

Aim

To test hypothesis about texts by

analysing their manifest and latent

content.

Thematic Analysis

Definition “A Research Method for the subjective interpretation of the content data through the systematic classification process of coding and identifying themes or patterns” (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005: 1278)

Aim To provide an integrated view of speech/texts and their specific contexts.

TA and other Methods

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Content Analysis

Epistemological Foundations

Deductive (top-down approach)

Sampling

Random

Coding Closed

Indicators Validity; Reliability; Generalisability.

Thematic Analysis

Epistemological Foundations

Inductive (bottom up approach)

Sampling

Purposive

Coding

Open

Indicators

Credibility; Transferability;

Dependability; Conformability

TA and other Methods

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Models and Approaches

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Classical Approach Zang and Wildemuth (2009)

1. Prepare the Data

2. Define the Unit of Analysis

3. Develop Categories and a Coding Scheme

4. Test your Coding Scheme on a Sample of Text

5. Assess your coding consistency

6. Code all the Text

7. Draw Conclusion from the Coded Data

8. Report your Methods and Findings

Models and Approaches

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A codebook usually looks like this:

Models and Approaches

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Results usually look like this: Occurrences

7

4

15

3

4

12

17

n…

….

Models and Approaches

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Thematic Networks Analysis

Web-like-illustration that summarizes the main themes constituting a piece of

text (Attride-Stirling, 2001)

Thematic analysis systematizes the extraction of:

i. Lowest-order premises evident in the text (Basic Themes)

ii. Categories of basic themes grouped together to summarize more abstract

principles (Organizing Themes)

iii. Super-ordinate themes encapsulating the principal metaphor in the text as

a whole (Global Themes)

Models and Approaches

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Thematic Networks Analysis :

Steps in analyses employing thematic networks (Attride-Stirling 2001)

Models and Approaches

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Results look like this;

Models and Approaches

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Models and Approaches

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Hybrid Approach:

Fereday and Muir-Cochrane (2006) have developed a hybrid process of

inductive and deductive thematic analysis.

This method incorporates both a data-driven inductive approach and a

deductive a priori template of codes.

The codebook is typically based on previous research.

Models and Approaches

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Theory- driven codes

Definition

Description

data

(Code 1)

>>>>

>>>>>>>>

(Code 2)

>>>>>>

(Code 3)

Models and Approaches

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Data- driven codes

Definition

Description

data

Trust and respect

(Code 4)

….

(Code 5)

Models and Approaches

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Qualitative Content Analysis (I)

Hsieh & Shannon (2005) individuate three approaches to Qualitative Content Analysis akin to thematic analysis.

A) Conventional Qualitative Content analysis (= bottom-up approach)

Researchers avoid using preconceived categories

Categories and names for categories flow from the data

Researchers immerse themselves in the data to allow new insights to emerge

Data are read word by word to derive codes

Codes are then sorted into categories based on how different codes are related and linked.

Emergent categories are used to organize and group codes into meaningful clusters.

Models and Approaches

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Qualitative Content Analysis (II)

Hsieh & Shannon (2005).

B) Directed Qualitative Content analysis (= Hybrid approach)

Using existing theories or prior research, researchers begin by identifying key

concepts or variables as initial coding categories.

The next step is to code all highlighted passages using predetermined codes

Any text that could not be categorized with the initial coding scheme would

then be given a new code.

Models and Approaches

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Qualitative Content Analysis (III)

Hsieh & Shannon (2005).

C) Summative Qualitative Content analysis (= Hybrid approach)

Starts with identifying and quantifying certain words or content in text with the purpose of understanding the contextual use of the words or content.

Quantification is not an attempt to infer meaning, but, rather, to explore usage.

If the analysis stopped at this point, the analysis would be quantitative, focusing on counting the frequency of specific words or content.

Summative qualitative content analysis goes beyond mere word count to include latent content analysis

Models and Approaches

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Trustworthiness & Robustness

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Validity, Reliability and Objectivity are criteria used to evaluate the quality of research in the conventional positivist research paradigm.

As a interpretative method, thematic analysis (and qualitative content analysis) differ from the positivist tradition in their fundamental assumptions, research purposes and inference processes.

Lincon and Guba (1985) proposed 4 criteria for evaluating interpretative research work: credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability.

Trustworthiness and Robustness

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Credibility: refers to the adequate representation of the construction of

the social world under study.

A set of activities can improve the credibility of research results

- Triangulation

- Checking interpretations against raw data

- Member checking

Trustworthiness and Robustness

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Transferability: refers to the extent to which the researcher

working hypothesis can be applied to another context.

Dependability: refers to the coherence of the internal coding

process.

Confirmability: refers to the extent to which the characteristics of

the data, as posited by the researcher, can be confirmed by others

who read or review the research results.

Trustworthiness and Robustness

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• Attride-Stirling, J. (2001) ‘Thematic Networks: an Analytic Tool for Qualitative Research’, Qualitative Research 1(3): 385-405

• Boyatzis, R.E (1998) Transforming Qualitative Information. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.

• Bradley, J. (1993). Methodological issues and practices in qualitative research. Library Quarterly, 64 (4)., 431-449.

• Feredey, J. and Cochrane, E.M. (2006) ‘Demonstrating Rigor Using Thematic Analysis: A hybrid approach of inductive and deductive coding and theme development,’ International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 5(1): 80-92

• Hsieh, H. and Shannon, S. (2005) “Three Approaches to Qualitative Content Analysis.” Qualitative Health Research 15(9): 1277-1288

• Lincoln, Y.S. and Guba, E.G (1985). Naturalistic Inquiry. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications

• Saldaña, J. (2009). The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.

• Zhang, Y. and Wildemuth, B. M. (2009). Qualitative analysis of content. In B. Wildemuth (Ed.), Applications of Social Research Methods to Questions in Information and Library. PDF available: http://ils.unc.edu/~yanz/Content_analysis.pdf

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