In their seminal 2006 paper, Braun & Clarke provide a step-by-step guide to thematic analysis. (I won’t outline all of the steps here, but a full reference for the paper is at the end of the post). In this post, I outline how their paper guided me in my own thematic analysis, and the different ‘layers’ of analysis I conducted based on this framework.
In introducing their framework, they discuss the semantic vs the latent analysis of qualitative data. The semantic refers to the explicit meaning given in a statement, and taking the statement at face value. Latent analysis considers the meaning behind the statement, and the justification for why that statement was made; I think of this as ‘reading between the lines’. These feed loosely into the ideas of deduction and induction. I decided to use this framework as a guide for my analysis partly due to its common reference in other works that use thematic analysis, and because it went beyond a ‘vibes-based’, ‘see what I find’ style of analysis that may be difficult to replicate were someone else to analyse my focus group transcripts from scratch.
Deductive analysis uses a pre-set framework for coding, sub-coding and interpreting qualitative data. In my study, this meant coding students’ statements as they aligned with the themes of autonomy, competence and relatedness according to self-determination theory (SDT). The deductive analysis in my study was helpful for explaining students’ general academic motivation, and helping to explain to some extent why they were motivated in the ways that they were (or weren’t).
Inductive analysis considers the meaning behind the statement a participant has made. Why do they think that? How do the various statements relate to each other? This ‘reading between the lines’ is where some of the inductive analysis came in during the analysis phase of my study, and was the basis for a large portion of the sub-codes generated. Examples of these sub-codes included:
- Students want to build autonomy into their school experience
- Students choosing their own goals over aiming for target grades
This wasn’t the only inductive analysis in my study. In addition to the sub-coding following deduction, there was also induction taking place where other themes were identified in the data. Examples of these included building themes around all of students’ contributions around ‘target grades’, or ‘future aspirations’. These new themes could then be further theorised later.
What about abduction? The title of the post refers not just to deduction and induction, but also abduction. My study is ‘partial fulfillment’ of a Doctor of Education degree, which is a professional doctorate (rather than a solely academic one). This means there needs to be some evidence of addressing or influencing the practice of teaching, and/or explicit use of my professional knowledge of the field of education. Use of my professional knowledge was provided in the thesis primarily through ‘context boxes’. (These were literally just 1×1 tables (i.e. single cell) that gave additional contextualisation to a finding or statement provided by a participant). The further interpretation and contextualisation of these data is abduction. The profession-focused nature of the degree means that this component of my analysis is essential, and hopefully it means that the findings and suggestions will be more applicable both to the study school, and perhaps beyond, too.
References
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. DOI: 10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
Timmermans, S. & Tavory, I. (2012). Theory Construction in Qualitative Research: From Grounded Theory to Abductive Analysis. Sociological Theory, 30(3). DOI: 10.1177/0735275112457914
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