Teaching thematic analysis: Overcoming challenges and developing strategies for effective learning
Abstract
With qualitative research methods an integral part of the psychology curriculum, questions arise of what approaches to teach, and how to teach them. We think thematic analysis (TA) offers a useful – and a relatively easy to teach and learn – basic introduction to qualitative analysis (see Braun & Clarke, 2006; 2012, 2013; Clarke & Braun, 2013); yet even teaching a fairly accessible approach like TA presents challenges in the classroom. Drawing on our experiences, and 38 responses from psychology students to a short qualitative survey on students’ experiences of qualitative and TA teaching, we explore some of the challenges of teaching TA to students new to qualitative research, and suggest strategies for overcoming these. Many of these are not specific to TA; they apply to teaching qualitative research more broadly, but we focus our discussion on TA.
... The students' Quarters 3 and 4 grades in English 8 and 10 were treated as pre-intervention and post-intervention data of their language and literature performance. This study used the Thematic Approach (Clarke & Braun, 2013) to analyse students' responses via semi-structured interviews concerning the impact and satisfaction of Padlet's use in language and literature class. ...
... To further confirm the second language learners' responses on the impact and satisfaction of using Padlet in their language and literature class, the data from the semi-structured interviews were thematically analysed, as suggested by Clarke and Braun (2013). The data were coded and combined into five main themes: (1) Sense of Validation, Inspiration, and Encouragement; (2) Sense of Motivation, Responsibility, and Comfortability; (3) Skills Enhanced through Padlet; (4) Difficulties Encountered in Using Padlet; and (5) Perspectives on the Use of Padlet. ...
Globally unprecedented changes in the education system heightened the functions and contributions of technology. Padlet emerged as an educational tool to address challenges in the continuity of quality education after the implementation of distance learning. This study examined the impact of using Padlet on second language learners' in language and literature classes satisfaction with Padlet use. The study employed a mixed method design, which used a reliable (α=0.83) 40-item Likert scale questionnaire and five open-ended interview questions analysed thematically. Results revealed that Padlet significantly impacted (t (163) =-7.348, p<0.001) students' proficiency in language and literature. Correspondingly, the students showed a significant improvement in submitting quality outputs, accomplishing assigned exercises on time, and establishing peer learning and encouragement. In addition, the students reported high levels of satisfaction (M=3.01, SD=0.43) with Padlet use. Therefore, schools may consider expanding Padlet's use beyond language and literature classes to maximise its full potential in the teaching and learning paradigm.
... Braun's [10] thematic analysis framework which has six steps. It was conducted by the principal investigator (PI) and a research assistant, who was a nurse midwife with vast experience in qualitative research methods. ...
Nursing and midwifery education in Malawi entails theoretical learning and clinical practice, essential for developing competent professionals. However, challenges such as staff shortages and limited resources hinder effective clinical teaching. Simulation-based education (SBE) offers a promising solution. This study aims to explore how SBE can enhance clinical teaching in Malawian nursing and midwifery education. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with lecturers, clinical instructors, and focus group discussion (FGD) with the final-year students. Thematic analysis revealed several key findings: SBE serves as a valuable gap-filler in clinical education, addressing complex needs while offering diverse learning opportunities. It also provides a platform for enhanced supervision and assessment strategies. The results indicate that SBE enables students to master various clinical skills without direct patient contact, reducing congestion at clinical sites while ensuring credit acquisition. Moreover, it proves effective as both a supervision and assessment tool for evaluating students’ clinical performance. In conclusion, the study advocates for the integration of SBE into Malawian nursing and midwifery education to alleviate the challenges associated with traditional clinical teaching. By leveraging SBE, institutions can mitigate overcrowding at clinical sites and provide students with diverse learning experiences. However, successful implementation requires adequate infrastructure, resources, and skilled lecturers. Ultimately, SBE holds the potential to significantly enhance the quality and outcomes of nursing and midwifery education in Malawi.
... The data material was analyzed through thematic analysis to identify patterns and themes of the qualitative data (Braun & Clarke, 2006;Clarke & Braun, 2013). The practical, step-by-step guide of thematic analysis according to Maguire and Delahunt (2017) was applied. ...
Background:
The characteristics of women-dominated work differ in Nepal compared to Sweden. Women in Nepal perform household and other lowincome work, including nursing, which is a women-dominated occupation in both Nepal and Sweden. Work-related adverse health outcomes, such as burnout, fatigue, depression, sleep disturbances, and long-term sickness absence, are evident in women-dominated work, especially within nursing. These challenges are accompanied by an increasing elderly population and a shortage of nursing personnel. Good health and well-being for all, improving working conditions and working environment, and providing adequate health and safety at work are the targets of sustainable development goals. Healthpromotive actions and interventions are needed to maintain and sustain health in women-dominated work.
Aims: The overall aim of this thesis was to identify means for promoting and sustaining health in women-dominated work in Nepal and Sweden through the evaluation and exploration of sense of coherence (SOC), work-related health, job demands, job resources, and health outcomes.
Methods: This thesis includes five individual papers. Paper I is a communitybased intervention study with a quantitative design conducted in Nepal. The participants were 857 women before and 1268 women after health education intervention in Nepal, who responded to a translated version of the SOC-13 questionnaire in Nepali. Papers II and III have a qualitative design and are based on 19 individual interviews with nurses in Nepal. Paper IV is also a qualitative study, based on 13 individual interviews with midwives and nurses in Sweden. Paper V is derived from the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH). Data were collected in 2016–2019 for all papers. The quantitative studies were analyzed through descriptive statistics, chisquared tests, one-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs), multivariable oneway ANOVAs, and logistic regression analyses. The qualitative studies were based on individual interviews, and the data were analyzed through qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis.
Results: Women in semi-urban Nepal exhibited total SOC mean values between 51.1 and 57.4, which are comparable to India within a similar context. Qualitative validation of the SOC-13 questionnaire in Nepali was fougeneral and not specific, and some translations were confusing. The SOC-13 items needed to undergo further editing in translation to increase their comprehensions. Nurses in Nepal and nurses and midwives in Sweden described their work experience as meaningful, and several experiences were partially similar; their work and health were reported to be strengthened through collegial support, teamwork, and opportunities for skills and competence development. Shift work, lack of rewards and appreciation from managers, low staff-patient ratios, and high workload affected their workrelated health negatively. In particular, nurses in Nepal experienced a lack of a safe physical work environment and insufficient managerial support. Results from SLOSH-data showed that the nursing professionals’ job demands were associated with lower self-rated health, higher burnout, and higher sickness absence. Job resources were associated with higher self-rated health and lower burnout.
Conclusion: This thesis shows that the SOC-13 questionnaire is useful and qualitatively validated for future use in the Nepalese context, to explore individuals’ overall life orientation and abilities to cope with various life events. Health education can be useful in strengthening SOC among women. To maintain, promote, and sustain health in women-dominated work, a healthpromotive approach should be fostered. Nursing professionals’ health can be strengthened and sustained through the development of a positive work environment through good collegial, organizational, and managerial support, offering skills and competence development opportunities, and creating a safe physical and psychosocial work environment. Increasing job resources and minimizing job demands are important to increase positive health outcomes and decrease adverse health outcomes. Nursing professionals in Nepal and Sweden can also adopt strategies that support recovery and stressmanagement at work.
... The research deployed a thematic analysis method on the transcripts of participants' interviews, to comprehensively explore thematic patterns during collaborative architectural processes within self-promoted cohousing projects. Thematic content analysis, as advocated by Clarke and Braun (2013), is chosen due to its adaptability to various qualitative datasets and research subjects. This method, being both inductive and deductive, enables researchers to identify, structure, and interpret themes emerging from qualitative data (Ciesielska & Jemielniak, 2018). ...
... Analyses were performed using IBM SPSS version 29. Qualitative data was analyzed using thematic analysis [43], which entails a six-phase coding framework of familiarization of data; generation of codes; combining of codes into themes; reviewing themes; determining significance of themes; and reporting findings [44]. Three members (SS, SRB, SD) of the analysis team familiarized themselves with each transcript by first independently reading and generating initial codes (meaning units) recorded in the margins of each transcript. ...
Introduction
Compassion is positively associated with improved patient outcomes, quality care ratings, and healthcare provider wellbeing. Supporting and cultivating healthcare providers’ compassion through robust and meaningful educational initiatives has been impeded by a lack of conceptual clarity, inadequate content coverage across the domains of compassion, and the lack of validated evaluation tools. The EnACT program aims to address these gaps through an Evidence-informed, competency-based, Applied, Compassion Training program delivered to healthcare providers working in various clinical settings. In this study, we describe the development and initial validation of the program, which will inform and be further evaluated in a forthcoming Randomised Controlled feasibility Trial (RCfT).
Method
A multimethod design was used to explore learner needs, experiences, and outcomes associated with the program. Pre- and post-training surveys and qualitative interviews (1 month post training) were conducted among twenty-six healthcare provider learners working in acute care and hospice. Quantitative measures assessed professional fulfillment/burnout, self-confidence in providing compassion, learner satisfaction, and compassion competence. Qualitative interviews explored learners’ experiences of the program, integration of learnings into their professional practice, and program recommendations.
Results
Learners exhibited relatively high self-assessed compassion competence and professional fulfillment pre-training and low levels of burnout. Post-training, learners demonstrated high levels of compassion confidence and satisfaction with the training program. Despite high levels of reported compassion competence pre-training, a statistically significant increase in post-training compassion competence was noted. Thematic analysis identified five key themes associated with learners’ overall experience of the training day and integration of the learnings and resources into their professional practice: (1) A beginner’s mind: Learner baseline attitudes and assumptions about the necessity and feasibility of compassion training; (2) Learners’ experiences of the training program; (3) Learner outcomes: integrating theory into practice; (4) Creating cultures of compassion; and (5) Learner feedback.
Conclusion
Findings suggest that the EnACT program is a feasible, rigorous, and effective training program for enhancing healthcare provider compassion. Its evidence-based, patient-informed, clinically relevant content; interactive in class exercises; learner toolkit; along with its contextualized approach aimed at improving the clinical culture learners practice holds promise for sustaining learnings and clinical impact over time—which will be further evaluated in a Randomized Controlled feasibility Trial (RCfT).
... The obtained data were analyzed through thematic analysis which is defined simply as a method for identifying and analyzing patterns in qualitative data. The strength of thematic analysis is based on its flexibility for analyzing both small and large datasets from those about people's understandings of a phenomena to those about the representation or construction of meaning in a particular phenomenon (Clarke & Braun, 2013). Thematic analysis follows six recursive phases which are In order to promote coding reliability, another round of coding was performed one week after the first round of coding. ...
Developments in the field of educational technology have accelerated research on Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK). As the number of the TPACK studies has been burgeoning, the need for a categorization study of the past research has emerged. Therefore, the objective of this systematic review study is to present a categorization table of TPACK studies in three main themes, namely, understanding TPACK, measuring TPACK and developing TPACK. In the study, the distribution of the articles in terms of the publishing year, country, methodology and the participants were aimed to investigate. For this purpose, 39 journal articles which were browsed in the Web of Science index and published between the years of 2013 and 2024 were examined. The results revealed that the number of the TPACK studies decreased from the year of 2021 on, the United States of America was the leading country with the most TPACK studies, quantitative design was the most preferred research design, and the majority of the studies were conducted with pre-service teachers for developing their TPACK level.
... A thematic data analysis approach was adopted to identify, analyze, and interpret the patterns in the data [20,21]. Data collection and analysis occurred iteratively; thus, after each interview, the recorded audio was played several times, which enabled immersion in the data. ...
Background
Evidence shows that patients who visit the surgical and trauma emergency units may be discharged with untreated or increased pain levels. This study explored nurses’ pain assessment and management approaches at a trauma-surgical emergency unit in Ghana.
Methods
Seventeen nurses who work in the trauma department participated in this qualitative exploratory descriptive study. In-depth individual interviews were conducted, and the thematic analysis was utilized to identify emerging themes and subthemes.
Results
Three main themes were identified: patient pain indicators, pain management, and institutional factors influencing pain management. The study revealed that nurses rely on verbal expressions, non-verbal cues, physiological changes, and the severity of pain communicated. The findings highlighted staff shortage, inadequate resources, and lack of standardized guidelines as factors affecting pain and management.
Conclusions
Although the study offers critical new perspectives on nurses’ experiences regarding pain related issues at the trauma-surgical emergency units, its small sample size limited its generalizability.
In addition to aligning with context-specific expectations of policy-makers, initial teacher education of secondary English teachers can consider schools' needs. Furthermore, schools may decrease attrition when they recruit teachers who meet their role requirements. To explore the learning area-specific role preferences and requirements of Australian non-government schools, a hybrid content analysis of N = 130 job advertisements was undertaken. Findings highlight three related but also distinct role preferences and requirements in relation to experience, qualifications and related knowledge, and English advocacy. It was also found that around one in five jobs were explicitly open to employing recent graduates. Job advertisements typically had poor coverage of learning area-specific role preferences and requirements, and only around a quarter of advertisements were seeking an applicant with suitable qualifications to teach in the English learning area. With reducing teacher attrition a key goal, schools could consider providing more detail in job advertisements to enable applicants to consider their skills and preferences in relation to the diverse needs of the secondary English teaching role. ARTICLE HISTORY
This research investigates the social media-enabled strategies adopted by two spiritual tourism agencies in Indonesia amidst the COVID-19 crisis to sustain their business by rekindling traveller confidence. An intrinsic qualitative case study approach is employed involving interviews with seven key stakeholders. Thematic analysis reveals that the creative use of YouTube for virtual pilgrimage simulations and religious content generation enabled continuous traveller engagement. By disseminating personalized information and forming online travel communities, the agencies overcame lockdown limitations and revived enthusiasm for future tours. The findings offer timely insights for tourism managers to harness digital platforms' affordances for crisis response, reputation management, and fostering traveller loyalty
Empirical research within critical psychology is strongly associated with the use of qualitative methods. In the field of qualitative psychology a distinction can be made between experiential and critical approaches (Braun & Clarke, 2012a, Reicher, 2000), both of which involve some kind of critique of mainstream psychology. Experiential approaches aim to capture participants’ experiences and perspectives and ground research in participants’ accounts, rather than researcher’s categories, but view language as a reflection of “internal categories of understanding” (Reicher, 2000: 3), and so assume it is possible to ‘read off’ participants’ thoughts, feelings and practices from their use of language. By contrast, critical approaches challenge what experiential approaches have in common with mainstream psychology – the assumption that language is only of interest as a description of inner states. Critical approaches (usually some version of discourse analysis) understand and analyse language as something that is constitutive, rather than reflective, of our social and psychological words, as a form of social action. One of the most common qualitative methods is (some form of) thematic analysis (TA); however, there is debate about whether TA is an experiential or a critical approach, and thus an appropriate analytic method for critical psychology.
Thematic analysis is a poorly demarcated, rarely acknowledged, yet widely used qualitative analytic method within psychology. In this paper, we argue that it offers an accessible and theoretically flexible approach to analysing qualitative data. We outline what thematic analysis is, locating it in relation to other qualitative analytic methods that search for themes or patterns, and in relation to different epistemological and ontological positions. We then provide clear guidelines to those wanting to start thematic analysis, or conduct it in a more deliberate and rigorous way, and consider potential pitfalls in conducting thematic analysis. Finally, we outline the disadvantages and advantages of thematic analysis. We conclude by advocating thematic analysis as a useful and flexible method for qualitative research in and beyond psychology.
Sado-masochism (SM) is described as a pathology in current psychological and psychiatric textbooks, and is often discussed alongside behaviours such as child sexual abuse and rape. Individuals who engage in SM are invariably positioned as experiencing intra-psychic conflict ameliorated through the displacement of the sexual drive. This is a limited and one-dimensional analysis of a complex phenomenon. This article presents the results of an in-depth qualitative study designed to further our understanding of the psychology of SM consistent with a social constructionist approach. Twenty-four self-identified sadomasochists, recruited through SM clubs and agencies and informal social networks, were interviewed. Thematic discourse analysis was used to generate a four-factor definition of SM: consensuality, an unequable balance of power, sexual arousal and compatibility of definition. Participants positioned SM variously as dissidence, as pleasure, as escapism, as transcendence, as learned behaviour, as intra-psychic, as pathological and as `inexplicable'. The research findings, their relevance to our understanding of SM sexualities and the limitations of the methodology and subsequent formulation, are discussed.
Research suggests that cultural shifts in the ways men's bodies are represented lead men to feel increasingly dissatisfied with their appearance. Clothing is an ideal but underresearched mechanism for appearance management; however, little is known about men's presentation of their bodies through clothed displays. This article explores the ways in which men's subjective feelings about their bodies influence their clothing practices. Thematic analysis revealed 4 key themes: practicality of clothing choices, lack of concern about appearance, use of clothing to conceal or reveal the body, and use of clothing to fit cultural ideals. This article demonstrates the pervasive and mundane role of clothing in men's self-surveillance and self-presentation and the range and complexity of the processes involved in clothing the body. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In this study, the authors examined the relationship between teacher and student enjoyment. Based on social-cognitive approaches to emotions, they hypothesized (a) that teacher enjoyment and student enjoyment within classrooms are positively linked and (b) that teacher enthusiasm mediates the relationship between teacher and student enjoyment. Self-reported enjoyment of mathematics classes was available from 1,542 students from 71 classrooms at 2 time points (Grades 7 and 8). At Time 2, mathematics teachers' reports of their enjoyment of teaching were available (N = 71), as well as student ratings of teacher enthusiasm. The findings were in line with theoretical expectations. Multilevel structural equation modeling showed that teacher and student enjoyment were positively related even when the authors adjusted for students' previous-class levels of mathematics enjoyment, and that the effect of teacher enjoyment on student enjoyment was mediated by teacher enthusiasm. Discussion centers on the practical implications for affective interactions in the classroom.
The reification of body image leads to unarticulated ideological and conceptual assumptions that obscure the most dynamic and productive features of the construct. These assumptions are that body image: (1) 'exists'; (2) is a socially mediated product of perception; (3) is 'internal' and 'of the individual'; (4) can be treated and measured as if real; and (5) individuals' respond to body image measures as if neutrally providing information about pre-existing images held in their heads. We argue that it is more useful to consider body imaging as a process, an activity rather than a product.
The growth in qualitative research is a well-noted and welcomed fact within the social sciences; however, there is a regrettable lack of tools available for the analysis of qualitative material. There is a need for greater disclosure in qualitative analysis, and for more sophisticated tools to facilitate such analyses. This article details a technique for conducting thematic analysis of qualitative material, presenting a step-by-step guide of the analytic process, with the aid of an empirical example. The analytic method presented employs established, well-known techniques; the article proposes that thematic analyses can be usefully aided by and presented as thematic networks. Thematic networks are web-like illustrations that summarize the main themes constituting a piece of text. The thematic networks technique is a robust and highly sensitive tool for the systematization and presentation of qualitative analyses.