Hello,

In principle there is no restriction over the number of categories arising from your data (note that categories are "created" from the data not from the codes). It depends on how rich your source of information is and, of course, on your research topic. As for the problem regarding the themes, they should arise from your categories. Are your categories related to each other in any way? Can you identify common attributes among them? etc.

Hi,

In qual research, it is always an iterative process rather than a linear one. So, if you find it confusing, I suggest you to revisit your transcripts. This happens to many new qual researchers (including my friends and myself too!). And please stay close to the data and not to overdescribe what the participant's said. I always find an in vivo coding is the better one.

Creswell & Poth (2018) suggest that a final code list of no more than 25 to 30 categories and might collate them into 5 or 6 themes.

Hope this helps,

Aliff

It sounds like you are following the common procedure of grouping codes into categories. I would not worry about how many categories you initially produce, because, as Mohd Aliff Abdul Majid says, this is an iterative process, where you can group your early categories into a reduce system of larger categories and sub-categories.

As for the process of producing themes from categories, this can indeed be a difficult process, and there are few rules to guide it. In particular, if you do a careful reading of Braun and Clarke (2006) on thematic Analysis, they provide almost no practical guidance on how to move from categories to themes -- yet they have over 50,000 citations for their approach.

I tell my students to think of themes as the underlying concepts that produce the categories -- why are these categories the ones that summarize the data and how to they arise?

Finally, I usually advise looking for 3-5 major themes -- less than 3 and you risk having a simplistic analysis, and more than 5 and it is hard for readers to keep track of them. And don't forget that themes can have sub-themes.

The following publications in relation to illustration of category/category guidelines and strategies/creating and assigning categories should be helpful.

• Dey, I. (2005) Qualitative data analysis: A user-friendly guide for social scientists. New York: Routledge.
• Kawulich, B. B. (2004) Data analysis techniques in qualitative research, Journal of Research in Education, 14, 1, pp. 96-113.
• Maxwell, J. A. and Miller, B. A. (2008) Categorizing and Connecting Strategies in Qualitative Data Analysis, in Hesse-Biber, S.N. and Leavy, P. (eds.) Handbook of Emergent Methods. New York: The Guilford Press, pp. 461-476.
• O'Connor, H. and Gibson, N. (2003) A step-by-step guide to qualitative data analysis, Pimatisiwin: A Journal of Indigenous and Aboriginal Community Health, 1, 1, pp. 63-90.
• Spiggle, S. (1994) Analysis and interpretation of qualitative data in consumer research, Journal of consumer research, 21, 3, pp. 491-503.

But in any case I would like to point out that, in the end, discovering categories inside the data, and themes inside the categories, etc. is some kind of an "art" so one should not hope to have strict rules or guidelines to follow. Precisely, analysing the data is the most difficult (yet exciting!) part of any research and it is where the researcher shows all his talent

Well, identification of categories is done as i see and more can be done depending if you attained the goals of your research and purpose. Analysing it is what is going to be hard. Coding can be done manually or via softwares which is not so hard but for some even that may be hard. Without simplifying it, i think that you must beware of your data that you analyse and the results that you get. It must be verified by you prior to making final conclusions as those conclusions without your human input may be misleading. Better to be cautious. After all you use tools to ease your research but you are the master of your research.

Thank you all so much for your input an advise! David L Morgan I have tried to find that article however, it appears without purchase I cannot obtain it - stupidly I think!. Antonio M. Oller-Marcén Thank you, I don't wish to have strict rules on what I must or mustn't or how many categories I should organise however, my facilitator is not giving me any information or help. In regards to your question I have colour-coded the data while decoding to recognise similarities and common areas as you mentioned. Thankfully, RG and a WhatsApp group has been my only stability and its just really good for me to have a ball-park figure to not go over so much. Kenneth Lui-ming Ngie I will take a look at those thank you very much and Mohd Aliff Abdul Majid I am very grateful for an estimate and Jasmin Omercic Ph.D. I did try software but I unfortunately am not the technical wiz queen. Instead I am decoding and 12 interviews and 12 questionnaires on the computer - through a hard process an I am truly grateful for all of your comments.

You can find an available copy of the Braun & Clarke article through Google Search.

Very interesting topic. Thank you all for the rich suggestions. I'm still at the early stages of my research, but I appreciated very much the references. Janine Casandra Kazmi thank you very much to have launched such a discussion. I wish you a successful data analysis.

Janine, just in case, I attach a collection of papers on thematic analysis (including Braun & Clarke (2013))

Thank you Janine for opening this conversation and Antonio for the papers on thematic analysis. This is very useful literature.

Elizabeth Ndofirepi no problem at all, I realised that my facilitator was not helping me and telling me to find the answers elsewhere so, the only place I knew would - was RG an I am forever grateful. Antonio M. Oller-Marcén thank you very much it is very helpful and Sabrina Colombo stick with it, its a long ride. Now I am under pressure to complete my full draft in less than two months - kind of panicking now.

If you have a deadline in 2 months, then I definitely recommend Thematic Analysis, since it will build on the coding you have already done. Here are 3 more articles on TA, which are particularly useful because they each contain examples.

FYI Braun & Clarke have a book titled, "Thematic Analysis," but it is not very useful because it is an introduction to qualitative research in general, that does not contain any new material on the analysis process itself.

As for the amount of categories, there is no real limit or one-size-fit-all guideline. That said, in the final analysis, you should not have too many because it will be hard to draw themes from too many. In "too many" I mean that the categories spread on a wide range of topics, rather than have roughly 3-4 over-arching categories, each with 3-4 sub-categories at most (sum = ~9-16 sub-categories). More than that would be hard to manage and summarize into something comprehensible.

As for moving from categories to themes, I am attaching two papers that may be helpful in this task.

All the best,

Jacob.

Just know that its a demanding task to accomplish so be patient and wait until your efforts become fully visible and dont worry because its totally normal to happen. Keep working on the analysis and it will be wonderful at end.

Thank you Jacob Y. Stein very much for your contribution and also Jasmin Omercic Ph.D. for your motivational words because I have been on the brink of giving up so much thus far.

Welcome dear Janine Casandra Kazmi , know that its never about how much we fall down but always about how many times we stand up after falling. To fall is to learn how to stand up and keep more stable than before.

Rockly Balboa said and we all, most, know the movies said that it aint about how hard we hit but about how hard we get hit, stand up and keep moving forward. That is how winning is done. :)

A share for everyone for these great words.

Dear Janine,

I can highly recommend you to use Atlas.ti to organise your data based on thematic analysis. It really helps you to visualize the qualitative data. Two helpful sources:

Saldaña, Johnny. (2013). The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. Sage: Thousand Oaks. pp. 58-244.

Konopásek, Zdeněk. (2008). “Making Thinking Visible with Atlas.ti: Computer Assisted Qualitative Analysis as Textual Practices.” Forum: Qualitative Social Research. 9(2).

Best wishes,

Maurice Schols

Maurice Schols Thank you so much however, that was the plan and what I proposed in my thesis but, it didn't work out as I could not understand how to do it and we had no information on that. So I reverted to the old traditional method, I have difficulty in technology an I did try also will again in the future. Thank you all the same for the advice.

There are some freeware alternatives to Atlas.ti, even if not so powerfull, they do a good job...

There are several ways to do this. It sounds like you are using a more open coding approach--as one might find in grounded theory--and then looking from cross cutting themes that bring these codes together. The thing with qualitative work, in that to do the themes justice one is not exhaustive. So like Jacob Y. Stein says, limit. Depth and discussion are better than breadth and overview. There are some good books on qualitative analysis I like Denzon and Lincoln's colating and interpreting qualitative material. Stauss and Corbin is good on Grounded theory. There is a companion book called Grounded Theory in practice which is also very good as it works through papers as examples. An alternative approach is to identify a broad theoretical framework or approach--and identify what the conceptual dimensions are and then see how your data speaks to those themes. Instutional Ethnography as an approach is a good example--if you google you will find a list of books/papers and a web site that is very instructive. Hope this is helpful and good luck.

Dear Janine Casandra Kazmi

Check these articles it may help you.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Vincenzo_Di_Ciommo/post/Qualitative_Data_Analysis-can_anyone_point_me_in_the_direction_of_a_comparative_methodology/attachment/59d61daa79197b80779790f4/AS%3A272142535462927%401441895245006/download/analyzing+qualitative+data_Bryman+%26+Burgess.pdf#page=188

http://www.theculturelab.umd.edu/uploads/1/4/2/2/14225661/miles-huberman-saldana-designing-matrix-and-network-displays.pdf

Thanks for the links shared Jacob Y. Stein

Thank you so much everyone, I am patiently awaiting for my results and graduation for next year. Best of luck to all of you :-)

Thank you Janine. I have learnt a lot from the responses to your question. Your graduation is by the corner!

Antonio M. Oller-Marcén could you recommend any free software? I work with nvivo but I am looking for accessible alternatives. Thanks!

Femke Truijens

The one I mostly use now is QDA Miner 4 Lite (this is a free version of QDA Miner, with less features, but useful in any case).

Here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-assisted_qualitative_data_analysis_software

You have a rather comprehensive list.

Antonio M. Oller-Marcén great, thank you!

There is no limit as such. I like to keep it within 4-5. Keeps it clean, easier to theorize from there. 9 categories can be a nightmare to develop patterns.