Skip to Main Content

Conducting Research Projects Guide: Thematic analysis

Guidance is provided to students engaging in empirical research projects for internships and post-graduate study

Introduction to thematic analysis

Unlike quantitative methodology, qualitative research does not produce numbers or trends.  Questions in an interview and participants answers in an interview may differ dramatically.  therefore, the best way to analyse qualitative data is to use one of the following:

Thematic content analysis:

The goal is to find common threads in the answers. You can achieve this by:

  • weeding out biased answers
  • sorting common themes that appear across all interviews.

Narrative analysis:

The goal in narrative anaysis is to make sense of each individual's answers.  You can achieve this by highlighting or coding important aspects of each participants story.

(Canary, 2022).

There are three commons means of analysing interviews:

  • by theme
  • by annotating
  • by using visual aids

Note: Whichever means you use to analyse your data, try to avoid coding everything that was said.  Only some themes or ideas you highlight will answer your research question.  Participants will talk about things that are not related to your research question.  When this is the case, ignore this information.

 

Analysis software:

There are a number of data analysis software programmes that can assist you in coding your transcripts.  Some of them allow you to add notes to annotate your scripts.  E.g. NVivo.  They can be costly to subscribe to, but some have free trials you may be able to access.

 

Other helpful resources:

The videos provided on this page are longer than usual, but very useful.

Although not an academic source, the following website has some useful information on analysing interview data:

                https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/how-to-do-a-thematic-analysis-of-user-interviews

To access further information on this page, click on the quick links in the box below.

Analysing an interview by theme

The first task to analysing themes is to code your transcripts.

Analysis by theme:

Once you have identified each theme,  you are ready to start your analysis.

Below is an example of a transcript that has used the highlighting technique:

(Copley, 2022).

Analysing an interview by annotation

Another method of setting up your transcript is in a table.  You can then annotate (add comments) on the side.

Below is one example of an annotated transcript.

(McAllister et al., 2022, p.122).

Analysing interviews using visual aids

If you do not have access to analysis software, some people find it useful to use visual aids e.g. post-it-notes to help with analysis.  If you choose this method, you may need to increase the size font of your transcript.  Below is an example:

There are problems with this method as notes can easily unstick, may be lost, and it can be a messy process. 

Useful video clips