Thank you Arek. I'm really glad that you feel this way. Feel free to drop me an email (through my website) and ask career questions, I am happy to respond (on UA-cam, I will not get a notification if you answer so I am likely not to see your response after this)
Great explanation. Nevertheless it's really important to say that a category like "organizational problems" or "emotions" are not themes, but topic summaries. So many times, people confuse the two concepts, and generate "themes" that are just very generic categories which do not tell the story at all.
I have to respectfully disagree. There is no reason why these should not be themes - it really depends on what the study is about. Concrete concepts like this (organisational problems, leadership styles, coping strategies, etc) can indeed be themes, and I often talked about this on my channel, explaining that I believe it is a misconception that themes should be higher abstract concepts. Like I said, however, this is my opinion and I respect your point of view too. Qual research is a flexible (and vague) thing and there is hardly any right and wrong here
@qualitativeresearcher In other types of Thematic Analysis they can be themes, I agree. However, in Reflexive Thematic Analysis, there is a difference, and it's not about the level of abstraction. As the authors say (Braun, V., & Clarke, V., 2021. Thematic analysis: a practical guide): "A topic summary is a summary of everything the participants said about a particular topic, presented as a theme. One of the main problems with topic summaries for us, and for reflexive TA, is that they unite around a topic, rather than a shared meaning or idea." "[...] As topic summaries capture the range of responses around a particular issue, they potentially contain quite different and even contradictory data. A topic summary around reasons for being childfree might include environmental, psychological, emotional, financial, and many other different reasons. What can you conclude from such a ‘theme’? Simply that there are varied reasons people have for choosing not to have children, and what some of these are. That might be useful to know, but it’s not the analysis that reflexive TA should result in!" "[...] A topic summary - whereby you report all the different responses or meanings around a topic in the dataset - would not count as a theme for reflexive TA." "[…] In reflexive TA, with themes defined by meaning-unity and conceptual coherence, each theme has its own distinct central organising concept." "Conceptual pattern themes from the childfree dataset include 'it’s making a choice that’s important' or ìcompensatory kids'. These themes are conceptual because they dig down below surface meaning, and are united around an idea that isn’t necessarily obviously evident in the data."
Listen to the constructive criticism being offered here. In reflexive thematic analysis, a 'theme' has a central organising concept. It's entirely different from summaries, categories etc. Unfortunately there are many who fall victim to thes mis-education these days.
I have several videos in which I discuss this - you can either merge the thematic frameworks or develop a single one, it really depends on how your study is designed. E.g. if I had teachers and students, parents and children, etc, I always analyse them separately and develop separate thematic frameworks. Sometimes I later merge them into one, sometimes not, and I do have a video in which I talk about reporting - again, I may have chapters divided by the group of participants and their findings, or I may go by the key themes and let them guide the structure of the results
Underrated channel. This is something I think I would like to do for a career.
Thank you Arek. I'm really glad that you feel this way. Feel free to drop me an email (through my website) and ask career questions, I am happy to respond (on UA-cam, I will not get a notification if you answer so I am likely not to see your response after this)
Great explanation. Nevertheless it's really important to say that a category like "organizational problems" or "emotions" are not themes, but topic summaries. So many times, people confuse the two concepts, and generate "themes" that are just very generic categories which do not tell the story at all.
I have to respectfully disagree. There is no reason why these should not be themes - it really depends on what the study is about. Concrete concepts like this (organisational problems, leadership styles, coping strategies, etc) can indeed be themes, and I often talked about this on my channel, explaining that I believe it is a misconception that themes should be higher abstract concepts. Like I said, however, this is my opinion and I respect your point of view too. Qual research is a flexible (and vague) thing and there is hardly any right and wrong here
@qualitativeresearcher In other types of Thematic Analysis they can be themes, I agree. However, in Reflexive Thematic Analysis, there is a difference, and it's not about the level of abstraction. As the authors say (Braun, V., & Clarke, V., 2021. Thematic analysis: a practical guide): "A topic summary is a summary of everything the participants said about a particular topic, presented as a theme. One of the main problems with topic summaries for us, and for reflexive TA, is that they unite around a topic, rather than a shared meaning or idea."
"[...] As topic summaries capture the range of responses around a particular issue, they potentially contain quite different and even contradictory data. A topic summary around reasons for being childfree might include environmental, psychological, emotional, financial, and many other different reasons. What can you conclude from such a ‘theme’? Simply that there are varied reasons people have for choosing not to have children, and what some of these are. That might be useful to know, but it’s not the analysis that reflexive TA should result in!"
"[...] A topic summary - whereby you report all the different responses or meanings around a topic in the dataset - would not count as a theme for reflexive TA."
"[…] In reflexive TA, with themes defined by meaning-unity and conceptual coherence, each theme has its own distinct central organising concept."
"Conceptual pattern themes from the childfree dataset include 'it’s making a choice that’s important' or ìcompensatory kids'. These themes are conceptual because they dig down below surface meaning, and are united around an idea that isn’t necessarily obviously evident in the data."
Listen to the constructive criticism being offered here. In reflexive thematic analysis, a 'theme' has a central organising concept. It's entirely different from summaries, categories etc.
Unfortunately there are many who fall victim to thes mis-education these days.
Hi can you suggest how to do multiple case study analysis n= 35? Been struggling with how to report it
I have several videos in which I discuss this - you can either merge the thematic frameworks or develop a single one, it really depends on how your study is designed. E.g. if I had teachers and students, parents and children, etc, I always analyse them separately and develop separate thematic frameworks. Sometimes I later merge them into one, sometimes not, and I do have a video in which I talk about reporting - again, I may have chapters divided by the group of participants and their findings, or I may go by the key themes and let them guide the structure of the results