Qualitative analyses Sample Clauses

Qualitative analyses. 3.1.5 Ensuring rigour and credibility

Qualitative analyses. It is important to note that in the research literature and text books, distinction has not always been clearly made between qualitative methods of data collection and qualitative analyses of data (Grbich, 2013). Where qualitative analytic methods in research studies have been described distinctly the two most common described forms have been content analysis and thematic analysis (Xxxxxxxxx, 2011b). Both of these approaches focus on the description and interpretation of qualitative data and share many similarities. Definitions for content analysis vary (Xxxxx & Thorogood, 2009) but it has usually been referred to as being simple frequency counts of data and so can also be actually considered a quantitative analysis in simplest form. Thematic analysis is probably the type of qualitative analysis which is most frequently cited in qualitative research papers (Xxxxxxxxx, 2011b). Descriptions of thematic analysis have, once again, actually varied quite broadly between researchers (Xxxxxx, 2011). Owing to the use or interpretation of thematic analysis in often quite different ways, Xxxxx & Xxxxxx (2006) endeavoured to advance thematic analysis as a much more clear and defined method. They described thematic analysis as a process in which qualitative data is searched for patterns to provide an illuminating description of the phenomenon. They described six different phases within thematic analysis: Phase 1: familiarizing yourself with your data; Phase 2: generating initial codes; Phase 3: searching for themes; Phase 4: reviewing themes; Phase 5: defining and naming themes; Phase 6: producing the report. A number of other qualitative analytic approaches have been described but very often the descriptions and the terminologies regarding them are used interchangeably which often makes distinctions between them difficult to draw. For example, grounded theory (Xxxxxx & Xxxxxxx, 1967) has often been described either as its own analytical approach or as a concept linked to inductive thinking used in other approaches. Grounded theory emphasizes the need in an inductive approach to constantly compare and adjust theory against the data. Sometimes the differences between approaches to the analysis of qualitative data are not actually large in practice but the differing terms reflect them being derived from different philosophical traditions. For example, the analytic approach known as interpretative phenomenological analysis (Xxxxx & Xxxxxx, 2008) is concerned with the psyc...