Thematic Analysis - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages... The second reading was done more carefully, with an emphasis on understanding what the answers were. On the third reading, a different tact was taken by reading only the same question and answer from every transcript and noting the differences and the similarities of the participants’ answers.
The interviews actually posed seven questions to the participants and needless to say, there were also seven answers corresponding to the questions. For example, the first question in every transcript for every interview is “How would you define your gender identity?” This question and the answers to them by the seven participants were the first items to be taken. To make the eventual classification of these answers easier, seven pieces of similar sized papers were used. In each piece of paper, the answer of the every participant was written. The same process was also observed for the next questions so that there were seven sets of papers corresponding to the answers of the seven questions, consisting of seven pieces of paper each for every interviewee’s answer. The papers were, of course, properly labeled and tagged as to the participant number and question number.
To proceed with the process of the thematic analysis, the first question and therefore the first set of papers were studied. The answers were again read, noting particularly their similarities and differences. Answers with similarities were grouped together. For the first question, for example (i.e., How would you define your gender identity?), the answers were grouped together into three. Each group of answers for the first questions was scrutinised carefully and examined for their similarities. The next step was to give a label or tag to the similarities that underpin them. For the first set of answers, for example, the label of Sex was attributed because these answers equated their gender identity with the Sex that they were born with. The second set of answers for the first ...Download file to see next pagesRead More