Research Methods

Content Analysis and

Thematic Analysis

Lesson Objectives

Start
To introduce content
analysis as a method
of analysing
qualitative data.
To complete a content
analysis
To introduce thematic
analysis as a method of
analysing qualitative data.
To complete a thematic
analysis .

Finish

Content Analysis
Can be conducted on primary and
secondary data.

ICWTC (I Can Write

This Code)

What is content

Interviews
Newspaper articles
Letters
Online forums
Feedback forms
Radio show transcripts

Where is it used?
Media companies and
advertising companies
frequently use content analysis
to examine how the can
improve their services and how
they can make more money!

ICWTC (I Can Write This Code)

1. Identify the key behavioural categories.
2. Code them
3. Write the code every time you see the behaviour
4. Tally the number of times you seen each
behaviour
5. Create a frequency table of the occurrence of key
behaviours in the table

Have a go!

Thematic Analysis
A research question is formulated
Data is collected
Look for patterns and themes within a
data set
Specific quotations are used as
supporting evidence

Familiarisation with the data

Read and reread the data,
become immersed in the content
You need to be overly familiar!

Coding
Generate labels that identify important
features of the data that might be relevant
to answering the research question.
You have to code the entire data set
and the collate all the codes
Once you have your codes you need to
gather quotes to support your codes.

Searching for themes

Look at all of your codes and
extracts- are there any
similarities or broader
patterns?
Once you have your themes you
need to collect data (quotes) to
support these themes.

Reviewing the themes

Check the themes against the wider data
set- are they representative of the data?
Do they help to answer the research
question?
Themes often change at this stage- they
can be split, combined or discarded

Defining and naming the

themes
Analysing each theme, determining a
story of each.
Deciding on an informative name
for each theme.
Put these themes into a table (Table
of Themes)

Example table of themes

Have a go
1. Read and reread the transcript.
2. Consider the data in terms of the
research question
3. Code each line of the transcript
4. Are there any themes?
5. Put these themes into a table of
themes.