CHAPTER 1 - University of Exeter

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Chapter 2 - Methods
Strengths of Thematic Analysis
We turn now to consider in more detail the option chosen for qualitative
analysis in this thesis. Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) was used to analyse
the data from both qualitative studies presented in Chapter 3 and Chapter 6 of this
thesis. We chose to use thematic analysis as opposed to other forms of qualitative
analysis because of a number of advantages thematic analysis has over other
qualitative techniques, such as discourse analysis. The most distinct advantage that
approaches such as thematic analysis and grounded theory offer over discourse
analysis is that they allow the researcher to draw out themes across a whole data set
as opposed to individual data items (Braun & Clarke, 2006), which was a clear
advantage for the qualitative work presented here. In Study 1 we analysed three
different accounts each from 98 people, and in Chapter 6 we analysed transcriptions
from three separate focus group sessions on the same topic. Being able to draw out
themes across these large data sets was more useful than examining small sections of
text in detail, as we were interested in an overall view of participants’ experiences
and approaches to shopping. Therefore discourse analysis (for example) would not
have been a suitable choice.
Braun and Clarke (2006) list a number additional advantages of thematic
analysis; it is flexible, and it is easy to learn and therefore accessible to researchers
who have had little contact with qualitative research techniques. Thematic analysis is
also useful for summarising key features of large data sets and it can help with
highlighting any similarities and differences across data sets. The latter two
advantages were exceptionally important for the present thesis.