Guidance for Thematic Analysis Coursework  

1,500 word thematic analysis of secondary data 

Use this Key Text To understand how to code and how to write up this paper PLEASE READ THIS KEY TEXT :

Key text: Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77-101. 

    

The Write-Up:
Title: your Research Question 

Key words: 3-5 key words about your work 

Method section (around 500 words): 

Data and participants subsection: what type of data did you use and why, how much data did you use and why, how did you get your data and why did you do it in this way? (Hint: have and provide a rationale for every decision you have made). How did you ensure anonymity of the data you are presenting? (Hint: pseudonyms) – don’t depersonalise it and use ‘Blog 1, Blog 2 etc). 

Check what you have written: if the reader wanted to use the same data you did, could they do so from the information you have provided in this section, and could they understand why? 

Data analysis subsection: describe how you conducted the thematic analysis – step-by-step. (Hint: write out the decisions you made about your thematic analysis stance using the Braun and Clarke (2006) paper). 

 

Check what you have written: if the reader wanted to carry out the thematic analysis you did, could they do so from the information you have provided in this section? 

Findings section (around 1,000 words excluding quotes): 

A sentence to introduce your key findings, referring the reader to Figure 1 – your thematic map. Present your final thematic map with the themes and their subthemes (remember to give the figure a title!). 

Discuss each theme and its subthemes in turn. You can start by briefly describing the theme, and then support it by using a salient quote to illustrate your interpretation. Then give your interpretation (Hint: this suggests that…/this illustrates that…). Your interpretation should be grounded in the data and not ‘wild’ as though it has been plucked from thin air. The reader should be able to clearly see how you have arrived at your interpretation through the themes and description and quotes you have provided (Hint: remember transparency as a quality criterion for qualitative research). Do not provide every single quote that supports your interpretation – just choose the most salient one for each point being made. Remember, minimal description (keep it brief), maximum interpretation. 

Quotes do not count towards the overall word count. 

Reference section: 

Include any references for citations you may have given in the Method section. The Braun and Clarke (2006) should be in there at least, plus any other reading you may have done about thematic analysis. 

Do not use non-academic sources such as Simply Psychology or Wikipedia. Only primary sources (e.g. peer reviewed journal articles) or secondary sources (e.g. academic books). 

Remember – if you are not sure how to do a thematic analysis, or what the write-up should look like, then look for journal articles that have applied a thematic analysis to see how they have done it, what the write-up looks like etc. Remember to think critically – not all papers will include the amount of detail you need, so consider this when you write up your own coursework and make sure you include all relevant details. 

    

Appendix section: 

 

Make sure you have referred to each Appendix in the relevant section of the coursework (Method and Analysis where appropriate). Include an Appendix that contains the information for where the marker can find your data (remember that it should be data that is publicly available, for ethical reasons. Please make sure you are not in breach of this. The marker should easily be able to find your data based on the information you have provided). 

This can be web-links to blog pieces, public Tweets, Instagram/Facebook posts/comments etc. Or the reference for a book, references for newspaper articles, reference for CDs or songs etc. 

    

Additional Information: 

 

The entire report should be presented in APA format – check the APA website, and the APA blog is very good for when you look for answers to specific questions. 

For reference I am attaching a sample paper of how my thematic analysis needs to look like, please make sure you follow that sample paper properly.

Make sure enough number of blogs are used and listed as shown in the sample paper.

Choose a nice and relevant topic something similar to the sample paper.

Need this submitted by 10-12 hours