Critical Analysis of 'Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology' Report

This report presents a critical analysis of the research paper "Using thematic analysis in psychology" by Braun and Clarke. The analysis begins with an introduction to the paper, which explores thematic analysis as a method for analyzing qualitative data in psychology. The report evaluates the conceptualization of the study, highlighting the authors' identification of a gap in the field and their clear articulation of research questions. It also assesses the appropriateness of the research design, noting the use of a descriptive, qualitative narrative approach. The quality of analysis is examined, emphasizing the authors' focus on interpretive methods and their discussion of the reliability and validity of thematic analysis. The findings are summarized, with a focus on the features, advantages, and disadvantages of thematic analysis, supported by multiple citations. The report concludes by providing a comprehensive overview of the paper's strengths and limitations, offering valuable insights for students and researchers in the field of psychology.

Running head: CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Critical Analyses of ‘Using thematic analysis in Psychology’
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1CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Introduction
The following essay focuses on the critical analysis of the peer reviewed published
research paper by Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke. The name of the paper is ‘Using thematic
analysis in psychology’, published in the journal of Qualitative Research in Psychology, Volume
3, 2006, Issue 2, pp. 77-101, ISSN 1478-0887. It is available online from the website of the
University of the West of England, at the URL, http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/11735. The publisher’s
URL is http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa. The paper is based on the usage of
thematic analysis on the field of psychology, i.e., using thematic approach to analyze the
qualitative data and how the method is different from other qualitative approaches for analysis.
The advantages and disadvantages of this type of analysis are also outlined in this paper. The
critical analysis of the above mentioned research paper includes the description and evaluation of
the concepts mentioned in the paper, the appropriateness of the research design, quality of
analysis, key findings and concluding remarks on the peer reviewed paper.
Critical analysis of conceptualization
The authors have addressed a current gap in the field of qualitative psychology, which is
the absence of a research paper outlining the theory, application and assessment of thematic
approach in the study of psychology. They have also focused on the problem that no such paper
on this particular analysis on psychology is accessible to the students and researchers. According
to Vaismoradi, Turunen and Bondas (2013), the authors have focused on the gap that is created
by the lack of a research paper based on detailed analysis of thematic analysis approach in
psychology and also focused on the inaccessible resources for further study. This is an useful
observation by the authors that there are no such accessible papers that has dealt with thematic

2CRITICAL ANALYSIS
and qualitative approach analysis in psychology. There are papers on quantitative analytical
approach on different aspects of psychological studies but, there is lack of papers on qualitative
analysis. Thus, it can be said that the authors have mentioned the problem statement clearly.
The authors indicated a good grasp of the subject. This can be traced from the way they
have described the definitions and features of qualitative analysis and the position of thematic
analysis among other types of qualitative analysis. The literature review of various other research
papers, done by the authors has shown the knowledge of them on this particular subject.
The researchers, i.e. the authors have focused on the gap in the qualitative analytical
research in the field of psychology. Hence, it can be said that they have a clear idea about the
problem of analytical papers in psychology. Therefore, they have formulated the research
questions on the thematic analysis, which is a part of the qualitative approach of analysis. The
questions attempt to find out the relevance and significance of thematic analysis in psychological
studies and also cover the features, advantages and disadvantages; and the limitations of thematic
analysis. The authors also provided various examples in the field of psychology where problems
can be solved by using thematic approach of analysis. Thus, it can be said that the questions are
generated by the authors from the gaps in the existing literature.
The research questions are based on in depth analysis of the qualitative research
approach. The authors have mentioned the research questions as a guideline of 6 phase for
conducting thematic analysis on various topics in psychology along with potential drawbacks,
which should be avoided while conducting thematic analysis, the features of a good thematic
analysis and the pros and cons of such analysis. Thus, it can be said that, the authors have clearly
mentioned the research questions before proceeding with the detailed methodology. The research

3CRITICAL ANALYSIS
questions and objectives are quite unambiguous because, the issues are clearly presented by the
authors.
The purpose of this paper was to bridge the gap in the analytical study of psychology.
There are many quantitative analytical papers that have addressed various issues in the
psychological studies, while the authors have observed that, no paper is present that analyses
various aspects of psychology in a qualitative manner. Thus, the significance of this paper is that
the authors have attempted to find out qualitative approaches based on thematic analysis of
psychological events. This is a new way of solving issues in the field of psychology. The
students and researchers, who would be pursuing future studies and research on this subject,
would be benefitted from this paper, as this might help to open up another ways of looking at
things in a different manner.
Critical evaluation of appropriateness of design
Regarding the appropriateness of the research design, the approach of the authors must be
reviewed first. It is found that, the authors did not follow the traditional structure of a research
paper. Rather they have addressed the solution to the problem statement by writing theories on
that topic. However, the authors have used two concepts, namely data corpus and data set. Data
corpus refers to all the data that was collected for a particular research study and data set
represents the data within the corpus that is used in a particular research analysis. Along with
that, Braun and Clarke also mentioned the ways of selecting the appropriate data set. One way
might be choosing the data with all or many individual data. The other way is to identify a data
set by a specific analytical interest, and in the corpus, all that specific references becomes the

4CRITICAL ANALYSIS
data for the research project. In the thematic approach, these types of data are used (Ando,
Cousins and Young 2014).
It can be said that qualitative narrative approach was used in answering the research
questions. In narrative approach, authors describe the research phenomena in the structure of a
story with a beginning, middle body and end remarks. According to Creswell (2012), the
narrative approach allows the reader to think about the research topic or subject and analyse it
critically by using his own judgments. The authors have described the approaches to use in future
studies in detail using various definitions but they did not collect any survey or interview data to
analyse it. Thus, they have followed the descriptive structure of analysis. It is a secondary
research approach using secondary data. Since, the authors did not collect any primary data
through survey or interviews, and have not done any sampling; hence, the aspects of data
collection and sampling are not present in this paper. According to Smith (2015), a research
study should be supported by both theories and data analysis. Only one type of analysis can
produce a biased result. Therefore, it is advisable that for any research paper producing unbiased
result, the researchers must analyse the literatures as well as collect data and analyse those
scientifically to prove the theories. The authors have explained various aspects of thematic
analysis through various literatures. This section covered the definition of thematic analysis, how
it can be applied in a research study, what are the drawbacks of thematic analysis, how can the
analysis be presented in a relevant manner to address the issues, its advantages and
disadvantages. The authors have presented the above sections in a detailed way by only using
various peer reviewed articles by other authors. However, they did not focus on data analysis.
Rather, they focused on analysing the issues based on various definitions and theories. Thus, the
choices and procedures for data collection procedures are not described in the above mentioned

5CRITICAL ANALYSIS
research paper. The authors have also not mentioned about any ethical consideration while
conducting a research study. Ethical considerations are one of the most important factors in a
research paper. Researchers must follow the guidelines and code of conduct while writing the
paper. The authenticity and originality of a paper is very important, and all the researchers must
follow that. However, in the abovementioned paper, the authors, Braun and Clarke, did not
mention about the ethical considerations that need to be maintained.
Critical evaluation of quality of analysis
The qualitative or interpretivist data analysis methods were used in the research paper by
Braun and Clarke. In other words, the thematic analysis approach was used by the authors.
Thematic analysis refers to the method to identify, analyse and report the patterns or themes
within the data. Various aspects of the research topic are interpreted through this approach. In the
paper, the authors focused on collecting secondary data from various other literatures by other
authors. Secondary data refers to the one that is collected from already published and authentic
sources, such as, books, journals, magazines, official websites of the government and
organizations, etc. (Ezzy 2013). These data are then analysed by using appropriate methods. If
the data is numeric and has a pattern or trend, then it is more appropriate to use the quantitative
data analysis approach. This helps to analyse and interpret the problem scientifically (Percy,
Kostere and Kostere 2015). While, using only interpretive method entails theoretical analysis of
the results. Here, the authors have used only interpretive method of analysis to describe the
answers. The analytic procedures of qualitative or thematic approach have been addressed by the
authors very clearly. They have cited various articles by various authors to explain the ways to
apply thematic analysis in the subject of psychology.

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The authors have focused on the issues of reliability and validity of thematic analytical
approach. Citing a reference from Attride-Stirling, 2001; Boyatzis, 1998; and Tuckett, 2005, the
authors have mentioned that no clear agreement has been made for using thematic analysis. It is
a relatively poorer concept than other qualitative data analysis method, namely, grounded theory
and narrative analysis. Braun and Clarke have also addressed the validity issue by saying that
process reporting and detailed analysis often contain insufficient detail. Hence, the reliability and
validity is often reduced. This approach is sometimes misinterpreted as themes emerging from
the data and not the data corresponding to the theme.
The claims made by the authors are quite justified. They have provided a detailed
discussion on the disadvantages of the thematic analysis approach of qualitative data analysis.
They have also compared this approach with other methods of analysis. It has been helpful in
understanding the difference between the approaches and the loopholes of this approach. For
example, the authors have cited that, there are many versions of the grounded theory to suit
different situations or topics. This is complicated but at the same time, these are useful to analyze
and understand everyday real life experience of people in detail for understanding the
phenomena in question. Thematic analysis is not as broad as the other approaches.
Critical analysis of the findings
The authors have made a detailed analysis of the thematic approach of the qualitative data
analysis. They have explained in details about the features, advantages and disadvantages of this
approach. Using multiple citations from various publications, they have explained various
aspects of this analysis. Under different headings, the authors have explained the basic concepts
of this analysis and how it can be implemented to analyse different aspects of psychology. Going

7CRITICAL ANALYSIS
through these headings and the corresponding paragraphs, it can be clearly understood what the
authors have tried to convey. They have started with the definition of thematic analysis, followed
by explanation of 6 phase guidelines, various data types, the benefits and disadvantages of it. All
the explanations are vividly illustrated by the authors along with relevant citations from various
other authors’ publications. For example, they have stated thematic analysis as foundational
method for the qualitative analysis, which are complex, diverse and nuanced and supported this
statement from the literature of Holloway and Todres, 2003. At the same time, they argued that
thematic analysis should be considered as an analytical method in its own right, which is
contradictory to Ryan and Bernard’s (2000) theory that stated that thematic coding was a
method, which should be performed within major traditions of analytics. Along with that, the
authors have provided a detailed discussion on the benefits and disadvantages of this approach.
However, the paper is completely based on theoretical analysis of thematic approach on
psychology. It did not do any proper research by collecting data on a particular topic and
analysing it. A standard research paper should contain five major chapters namely, Introduction,
Literature Review, Methodology, Data Analysis and Discussion, and lastly Conclusion. The
paper by Braun and Clarke did not follow this structure. They have mainly followed the structure
of an essay and described various nuances of thematic analysis. The authors have set the problem
statement or research questions as a broad topic, such as, the gap in the field of research in
psychology in regards to the application of thematic analysis. They also wanted to present a
paper on this topic, which would be accessible and useful to the students, researchers as well as
to the teachers. A thorough review of the paper helps to understand the concept of thematic
analysis and its application in the research study in psychology. The research questions or
problem statement as mentioned in the beginning of the paper, were addressed by the author in

8CRITICAL ANALYSIS
the paper. All the topics, such as, the concept, 6 phase guidelines, pitfalls to avoid during
research, the factors for making a good analysis, advantages and disadvantages of the thematic
approach, have been explained clearly in the paper, which relate to all the problem statement.
Hence, the problem statements were addressed by the findings. However, the authors only
followed qualitative approach to get the findings and did not support it by collecting and
analysing real life data.
Conclusion
In the critical analysis of the paper ‘Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology’ by Virginia
Braun and Victoria Clarke, various aspects of the topic have been evaluated and explained. The
review paper contains an overview of the paper, critical analysis of research concept,
appropriateness of the research design, quality of analysis, findings and lastly, the concluding
remarks. The critical evaluation addressed that the authors have clearly defined the purpose of
the research and the research topic. They have been specific about the problem in the research
field of psychology. Hence, they have written their paper with qualitative analysis in mind.
Braun and Clarke have given detailed focus on the advantages and disadvantages of the thematic
analysis in psychology and the things that this analysis offers to the psychologists. Thematic
analysis is an interpretivist method of analyzing. Hence, the interpretation varies from one
person to the other and therefore, the findings may differ in this approach. Since, qualitative
analysis does not deal with scientific analysis of data; hence, the authors did not collect primary
data. They collected secondary data from multiple publications of several authors and based their
analysis on application of thematic approach in the field of psychology. It can be concluded that,
this is a good and useful paper by Braun and Clarke, which has a detailed insight of thematic
analysis and its application in qualitative analysis of various topics of psychology.

9CRITICAL ANALYSIS
References
Ando, H., Cousins, R. and Young, C., 2014. Achieving saturation in thematic analysis:
Development and refinement of a codebook 1, 2, 3. Comprehensive Psychology, 3, pp.03-CP.
Attride-Stirling, J., 2001). Thematic networks: an analytic tool for qualitative research.
Qualitative Research, 1(3), 385-405.
Creswell, J.W., 2012. Educational Research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative
and qualitative research. (4th Ed). Boston: Pearson.
Ezzy, D., 2013. Qualitative analysis. Routledge.
Percy, W.H., Kostere, K. and Kostere, S., 2015. Generic qualitative research in psychology. The
Qualitative Report, 20(2), p.76.
Smith, J.A. ed., 2015. Qualitative psychology: A practical guide to research methods. Sage.
Tuckett, A. G., 2005. Applying thematic analysis theory to practice: A researcher's experience.
Contemporary Nurse, 19(1-2), 75-87.
Vaismoradi, M., Turunen, H. and Bondas, T., 2013. Content analysis and thematic analysis:
Implications for conducting a qualitative descriptive study. Nursing & health sciences, 15(3),
pp.398-405.