Thematic analysis has a long history as a phenomenological method - so you could do TA within a phenomenological framework but you can't meaningfully combine TA and IPA as the analytic procedures are rather different. Check out the FAQ on the differences between TA and IPA on our TA website: https://www.psych.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/thematic-analysis.html

I am not sure why you want to switch away from IPA as your method, so that you would collect the data with one set of priorities and assumptions, and then analyze it in a different way.

Can you tell use more about why you would use IPA as your analysis method?

I think you can use thematic analysis as a data analysis technique in this type of study. Because Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is a qualitative approach which aims to provide detailed examinations of personal lived experience. It produces an account of lived experience in its own terms rather than one prescribed by pre-existing theoretical preconceptions and it recognizes that this is an interpretative endeavor as humans are sense-making organisms.

Victoria Clarke On your website, you say that "Thematic Analysis" is an umbrella term for studies that analyze qualitative data in terms of common emerging themes. I have actually seen this done in many IPA studies. I would imagine that you explicate the difference between the two in your FAQ's, but I unfortunately cannot access them, because they appear as a .pdf file and I cannot use the links, strangely. Would you mind giving a brief description of the difference between the thematic interpretation used in IPA studies and that used in TA studies here? Otherwise, it would actually seem to me like the two are rather compatible and need not necessarily be separated from each other.

Christopher Zieske I was able to access the page through this link.

https://cdn.auckland.ac.nz/assets/psych/about/our-research/documents/Answers%20to%20frequently%20asked%20questions%20about%20thematic%20analysis%20April%202019.pdf

David L Morgan Thank you so much! hopefully this can help illuminate for me how exactly Victoria Clarke separates TA from IPA—though I am very familiar with one of these paradigms (IPA) I am somewhat less familiar with the other (TA.)

This may be an important paper for you : https://cdn.auckland.ac.nz/assets/psych/about/our-research/documents/Answers%20to%20frequently%20asked%20questions%20about%20thematic%20analysis%20April%202019.pdf

Victoria Clarke I have finally figured out what the problem was—I had mistakenly thought that your FAQ's were on a page separate from the .pdf file, when they were simply below the list of questions asked. In any case, I was finally able to read your explication of the differences between IPA and TA. It makes much more sense now why you had emphasized the differences in procedure between IPA and TA, and I would agree that if Lizeka Maduna had started the study off using IPA, she should likely continue using this methodology to the completion of her study. However, if you wish to do so, Lizeka, you can always go back and conduct a similar study using a phenomenologically-oriented TA approach to analysis to see if this reveals any new aspects of the students' experiences. I hope this helps to answer your question.

Lizeka, there is no harm in using thematic analysis firstly as a way of identifying the recurring themes in students' personal experiences of GBV on campus and secondly as a way of making sense of (i.e. interpreting) those experiences. Given the predominantly qualitative nature of your study, I think it is well suited for thematic identification, potential pattern recognition (if any) and the sense making process that is involved in these procedures. Good luck with what looks like an interesting piece of research.

A straightforward response is not to use TA to analyse your data when you have started with IPA. IPA is a methodology on its own with guidelines for analysing data based on its theoretical foundations of phenomenology and hermeneutics. Unless your aim is to critique the IPA methodology and introduce TA within IPA then I think there is probably no need to use TA with IPA

See this paper. somewhere in the process of the analysis of IPA, you will need to employ understanding of TA

Article Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the Lived Experi...

Thank you so much everyone for the assistance. Your answers are insightful and useful.