What Is Thematic Content Analysis in Qualitative Research?
Thematic content analysis is a form of qualitative data analysis. However, there are many different definitions of thematic content analysis, which can make defining it difficult.
It is not uncommon to have variations in how researchers define a qualitative methodology or research framework. However, while individual researchers may define methodologies slightly differently, they tend to follow a similar structure and output when using it to analyze their data.
But when it comes to thematic content analysis, the differences in definition are so distinct that it seems like they are using different methods altogether. In this article, we'll explain different interpretations of thematic content analysis to help clarify what it is.
Collating thematic content analysis information
The main works consulted for this article include:
Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide (Braune and Clark, 2006)
Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology (Krippendorf, 2004)
The Content Analysis Guidebook (Neuendorf, 2017)
There are many opinions about thematic content analysis, but some stand out as being well-qualified and unique. We have interpreted these opinions and will present them here.
Thematic content analysis: three schools of thought
Of the various schools of thought on the topic, three predominant definitions stand out:
Thematic content analysis is often used by researchers as a stand-in term for qualitative content analysis, which is a more comprehensive research category. Essentially, for many researchers, thematic content analysis serves as a reference to qualitative content analysis when they want to differentiate it from quantitative content analysis.
Similarly, thematic content analysis is also used as a proxy for thematic analysis. For instance, Anderson (1998) suggests that “TCA portrays the thematic content of interview transcripts (or other texts) by identifying common themes in the texts.” For many researchers, this definition is just another way of saying thematic analysis.
The final definition of thematic content analysis focuses on how themes are defined. McClelland et al. (1975) positioned themes as a unit of analysis for “storylike verbal material”. This makes thematic content analysis a subcategory of qualitative content analysis, which is a unique distinction from the other operational definitions of TCA.
Definition #1: Thematic content analysis = qualitative content analysis
Content analysis is broken into two primary groups: qualitative content analysis and quantitative content analysis. Where qualitative content analysis focuses on the text-based meaning and pattern identification [1], and quantitative content analysis takes a more statistical approach.
Some researchers use the term thematic content analysis as an alternative name for qualitative content analysis (Braune and Clarke, 2006). In short, when a content analysis is applied qualitatively, this is sometimes called thematic content analysis as a way to distinguish it from quantitative content analysis.
We personally prefer the term qualitative content analysis over thematic content analysis in this context. We find it a more intuitive definition when compared to the term quantitative content analysis.
Definition #2: Thematic content analysis = thematic analysis
Some researchers use “thematic analysis” and “thematic content analysis” interchangeably.
As noted above, researchers such as Anderson (1998) blur the line between these terms almost entirely. Beyond “identifying common themes in texts”, she suggests that a researcher in TCA:
“Groups and distills from the texts a list of common themes in order to give expression to the commonality of voices across participants. Every attempt reasonable is made to employ names for themes from the actual words of participants and to group themes in a manner that directly reflects the texts as a whole.”
Confusingly, this is how most researchers would define thematic analysis. This blurred line likely started in the early history of thematic analysis when it grew out of content analysis. [1]
We prefer a more clear delineation between the two research methods by defining thematic analysis itself and showing how it differs from TCA. You can find an extensive comparison between thematic analysis and content analysis here.
Definition #3: Qualitative content analysis > thematic content analysis
That leads to the last definition, where thematic content analysis is a type of qualitative content analysis. The main basic difference within this definition is the way that “themes” themselves are defined. There are two helpful ways to consider this definition.
“Thematic units” in TCA are fundamentally different from“themes” in thematic analysis
According to MccLelland’s definition of thematic content analysis, “themes” are representative—or at least closely related to—a type of narrative within the data. One that seeks to “extract psychological constructs through the content analysis of storylike … materials” and tell a story of the people speaking or being spoken about in the data. [3]
McClelland defines thematic units as a way for researchers to search stories (textual data) for statements of goals and success or failure in a kind of competition with others. They then characterize the individuals in the stories as having needs or motives and engaging in activities to achieve their goals. These goals may be blocked or helped by obstacles or other circumstances. The “re-articulation of any part of the story in these terms” represents a thematic unit.
This concept of a thematic unit in TCA is fundamentally different from a theme in thematic analysis. As Braun and Clarke put it, a theme is “a shared, multi-faceted meaning, patterned across at least some of a qualitative dataset… unified by a central organizing concept or idea; developed initially… by clustering together codes”.
In TCA, thematic units are the pieces you use to construct your analysis. In thematic analysis, a theme is the high-level outcome of your analysis that offers a holistic meaning of the data.
That leads to the second way to understand McClelland’s definition of TCA.
All content analysis has “units” and in TCA those units are thematic
According to McClelland, extracting thematic units from text data involves the same procedure as any other subcategorical method of qualitative content analysis. Nearly all qualitative content analysis involves 1.) breaking your data into “units” that represent abstract ideas within the data and 2.) organizing them to identify patterns of meaning and create a comprehensive analysis.
In thematic content analysis, those “units” are defined thematically which means they represent chunks of narrative or story-like content. As one example, a unit in summative content analysis is a piece of text that includes a keyword and is coded in a mostly deductive process. A thematic unit is narrative in nature and requires a deeper, inductive analysis to first identify them.
However, the coding technique is just about the same in these methods; as well as conceptual content analysis, relational content analysis, or directed content analysis. All of these are just subsets of the larger analytical category.
By using thematic units in this way, TCA (by this definition) is inherently a sub-method of qualitative content analysis that follows the same analytical process as other subsets.
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References
Braun, V., Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3: 77-101.
Krippendorff, K. (2004). Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology (2nd ed.) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Neuendorf, Kimberly A. The Content Analysis Guidebook. Second ed., SAGE Publications, 2017.
McClelland, D. C. (1975). Power: The Inner Experience. Irvington Publishers.
Cite this blog post:
Delve, Ho, L., & Limpaecher, A. (2023c, February 20). What Is Thematic Content Analysis in Qualitative Research? https://delvetool.com/blog/thematic-content-analysis