Thematic Analysis or what did s/he say? Finding stuff out without doing t-tests Prof. Chuck Huff Research Methods with lab, 2014
Overview Outline Some philosophy and theoretical background The practical stuff Administrivia Lab Reports due tonight Enjoy Fall Break
An argument you don t care about but should Essentialist Approaches Realist: we are measuring things that exist out there (need not be naïve) Essentialist: We are learning their essence, or what they really are. Criteria: validity, reliability Danger: dishonesty by reification Constructionist Approaches We are making measurements that are shaped by our construction of the phenomenon Use inference to do deconstruction of meaning Criteria: completeness of meaning Danger: dishonesty by lack of discipline
Some other approaches Discourse Analysis Conversation Analysis Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Grounded Theory Thematic Decomposition Analysis Content Analysis
Thematic Analysis Is a non-theoretical tool that is used by both approaches Captures some important pattern of meaning in the data that is relevant to the research questions (Sheer frequency is not a meaningful guide) Is both flexible and constrained Requires identifying, analyzing and reporting: patterns Is an active approach, (data don t do anything) Can both reflect reality and deconstruct it Data are never coded in an epistemological vacuum
6 Phases of Thematic Analysis Writing/reporting occurs throughout the steps It is a recursive process 1. Familiarize yourself with the data (really, do it) 2. Generate initial codes (use context and inclusive coding, represent contradiction) 3. Search for themes 4. Review the themes (internal homogeneity, external heterogeneity) 5. Define and name the themes 6. Produce the report (tell the complicated story of your data in a way which convinces the reader of the merit and validity of your analysis)
Dangers of Thematic Analysis Not actually analyzing Inaccurate or shallow description of the data (avoid anecdotalism) A failure to look for or account for disconfirming/ nontypical instances
Difficult Practicalities How to avoid Being a journalist Being a tourist Wandering from tree to tree in the forest Being simply lazy Be clear about goals Content, language, social action, or narrative? What counts as a good insight or reading? What systematic approach gives you a stopping rule?
Where is Validity? (and do you need it?) Respondent Validation Triangulation (not convergence, but completeness) Coherence Negative case analysis (not falsification, but complication) Transferability (not external validity) See the checklist for quality in Braun & Clarke (2006) Braun, Virginia, & Clarke, Victoria. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3, 77-101.
Identify the Themes Story 13 (Nat Law 1.0, A/I 1.0) So Thorn Lighting were now using an internal facilities management process. That worked fine and we did all the processing for them. And then the politics kicked in because there was a sort of an internal war raging between the subsidiary company and the conglomerate on the basis of, Why should we pay the facilities manager when we could do it ourselves? We can put the stuff into the research laboratories and let them do it. So he had been instructed to give back the lighting design system so that these people could run it rather than us and they could then they could then take on the responsibility of maintaining it themselves. And he said, as far as he was concerned this matter was not resolved, and so what he wanted me to do was to give them that, but to actually doctor it so that they could only use it for a short period of time. It was a functioning system already, and he wanted me to put some brakes on it. And he said, Let them run it for a month. I said, Alright. He said, And we re not going to tell them. Alright, okay. So there was nothing like informed consent about it, at all. So I set about this task with great enthusiasm. I built all of these blind alleys to hide the embedded things, in a variety of places. Well I had a great time doing this thing and shipped this thing off and felt nothing morally. The holding company got back their system and the time-bomb was removed. I didn t get any flack for it. I m not too sure whether anybody got any flack for it, but it could ve lost that company one hell of a lot of money if they couldn t of fixed that design because what we re talking here about was it worked out the illumination of the sports stadium, it works out in an evenness of illumination. It was a long time ago, but thinking back on it I guess it was all feeling this: these other people, who didn t really know what this stuff was about, were actually interfering with a relationship between me, the software engineer, and the designer as the customer, and so I was going to protect that. So when instructed oh, okay. But looking back on it now, it was a wholly immoral thing to do.