Hi Rebecca,

Not really. You need to use GT from the outset to generate theory. It has to be the intention of the study - using Glaser, Strauss, Corbin, Charmaz, Bulmer's  etc approaches to framework and analysis. If you are using a generic thematic analysis approach - it is probably 'skipping' important stages - such as axial coding etc. 

The attached chapter may assist.

This great site deals with different questions (and answers) regarding thematic analysis and I'm sure that can be helpful. Good luck!

https://www.psych.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/our-research/research-groups/thematic-analysis/frequently-asked-questions-8.html#fa17d482fff4e362e65f6a93b649007f

Dean, thanks a lot for really interesting chapter of yours. Great job in gathering all necessary information. One may agree with one or another approach, but they are all well-presented and discussed. I just printed it :).

Dear Rebecca,

I think It is possible, if you look at these materials in the theoretical perspective of Social representations (Moscovici, 1961/1976; 1988, 2001). Social representations, in fact, are naïve theories, common sense theories, social constructed (and shared) starting from few, incomprehensible, disturbing scientific concept/informations. In other words, Social representations are about processes of collective meaning-making resulting in common cognitions which produce social bonds uniting societies, organizations and groups. It sets focus on phenomena that becomes subjected to debate, strong feelings, conflicts and ideological struggle, and changes the collective thinking. As a theory of communication it links society and individual, media and public, source and target. Representations familiarize the unfamiliar by the related processes of anchoring and objectifying. Anchoring involves the naming and classifying of novel encounters, ideas, things or persons. It is based on an existing order of meaningful names. Objectification solidifies and makes tangible the abstract and potentially threatening new idea. Images, material exemplars, models, and verbal metaphors, as they are used in everyday life, are the basic means for understanding and grapsing of the world, and as such are empirical data in the study of social representations. Anchors and objects are not fixed once and for all, they are transitional pointers in the evolution of meaning of an aspect of the world. Make research in this field, means, first of all, to find the scientific basis of any anchored representational element. And it is also possible by using a thematic content analysis. To give you just two references among the hundred possible:

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/2640/1/Theoryandmethod.pdf

https://sociologies.revues.org/993

...and some basic...

Moscovici, S. (1961/1976). La psychanalyse, son image et son public. Paris, FR : P.U.F.

Moscovici, S. (1988). Notes towards a description of social representations. European Journal of Social Psychology, 18, 211-250.

Moscovici, S. (2001) Why a Theory of Social Representations? In K. Deaux & G. Philogéne (Eds), Representations of the Social (pp. 8-35). Oxford, UK : Blackwell Publishers.

Best regards,

Roberto

So Roberto - how is what you have said related to Grounded Theory - I am intrigued? I may learn something here. 

Ohhh - and thank you Mateusz for your kind words. Appreciated!!

Dear Rebecca, 

Try J. Spradley (1979, 1980) Relatively old concepts but still fit.

BBB

Dear Rebecca,

A thematic narrative analysis can maybe be useful. Narrative scolars often keep the interview (or narrative) intact by theorizing from the case rather than from the component themes across cases.

A potential starting point:

Kohler Riessman - Narrative methods for the human sciences (ch 3), or

Schiffrin, de Fina, Nylund - Telling stories and de Fina & Georgakopoulou - Analyzing narrative

Best,

Magnus

May I suggest you refer to the following papers, which would be helpful to your topic, particularly Olaogun and Fatoki (2009, p. 20): if theory building is the goal of a research project, then findings should be based on a set of interrelated concepts, not just a listing of themes.  

• Bazeley, P. (2009) Analysing Qualitative Data: More Than ‘Identifying Themes’, The Malaysian Journal of Qualitative Research, 2, 2, pp. 6-22.
• Jabareen, Y. (2009) Building a Conceptual Framework: Philosophy, Definitions, and Procedure, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 8, 4, pp. 49-62.
• Olaogun, J. A. and Fatoki, O. I. (2009) Theory Building Approach Using Qualitative Data Analysis, The Social Sciences, 4, 1, pp. 12-23.
• Sutton, R. I. and Staw, B. M. (1995) What theory is not, Administrative Science Quarterly, 40, 3, pp. 371-384.
• Wacker, J. G. (2008) A conceptual understanding of requirements for theory-building research: guidelines for scientific theory building, Journal of Supply Chain Management, 44, 3, pp. 5-15.

I don't see any reason why you can't link the themes from a thematic analysis into a theory. Just because Grounded Theory is intended to produce theory does not mean that other methods are prohibited from developing theory.

I have attached an article that discusses building theoretical models from thematic analysis. 

I think yes, especially when you are working in the context of inductive logic. 

Why not! A theory can be defined as "...a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained."

If the themes generated through qualitative data analysis fit the above criteria then they , in principle, form a theory. Of course other factors such as the data collection methods, data analysis, trustworthiness etc. needs to be sound before claiming it to be a 'full-blown' theory, but yes, a theory out of a thematic analysis is a definite possibility.

I am not sure about the answer because it strongly depends on what you mean by 'theory'. You can certainly link your four themes and construct something more general. However, it is not clear to me which definition of 'theory' would apply to this 'something'.

I agree with Dean that it would not be a grounded theory because it doesn't meet the specs. Luckily for us, GT is just one way of qualitative research besides many others. If you take Noman's definition, your 'something' should explain what you observed and cases beyond that. If you use Roberto's concept, than your 'something' is very likely to be a theory because Roberto allows for 'naïve theories, common sense theories'.

So I think the major question is: What kind of theory do you want to develop? Or is this just about a very general description? 

This is a very difficult question to answer because on one side the answer is "yes" but on the other side, the answer is "no". Did you set out your research towards theory building or just to get an insight into the phenomenon of interest? This is very critical because, that would have informed your research methods. You need to consider the reliability of your data and how the data was coded and analyzed. That aside, i think it can be considered as an important step towards theory building. But i also think developing an acceptable theory will have to go a step further than what you did.  

Hi Rebecca,

I think the answer depends on more issues than you raised in your question. Is there a variety of issues on the subject; what is the quality of interviews; how many interviews are conducted, etc.

Can themes generated by thematic analysis link together to form a theory without becoming a grounded theory approach?

Yes this is possible.  There are also instances that a theory derived through grounded theory approach combined with other theories to form a superset of theory or the superset of theory can have numerous sub-theories.  One example is Triarchic Theory by Sternberg that consists of 3 sub-theories:

http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/triarchic-theory.html

Hi Rebecca

My experience is that if you intend to publish the work claiming to have undertaken grounded theory you will need to specifically show the GT steps that you have taken, in order to substantiate the claims that you have used GT. You may wish to look at some of my published studies on RG that show the steps that I had to  take in order to demonstrate the claim that I have used GT.

Hope this helps

I wonder if what you have landed on is really a theory, or just an overarching theme that ties everything together? It's hard to tell without more information.

I have only come across this thread now, but I would like to second Caitriona's post regarding how useful all these comments are,  they will really help me in my research, so thank you to everyone!

Yes, I don´t see why not. Additionally, the four themes - emprirical or theoretical and the aim? Is it to study what people are doing when they tell stories, and analyse what stories are designed to do? And thereby; “what people do with their talk" and how they "accomplish a sense of self, engage in story-telling-talk”.

Thematic analysis is used in descriptive studies. When you develop links between themes you are not anymore in a descriptive study. I think it becomes a grounded theory and that you have to take all the steps of theory developing like theoretical sampling, saturation, negative cases management etc.