I am conducting qualitative research for my doctorate in counselling psychology, exploring humanitarian workers’ experiences of morally conflicting events, through the lens of Litz et al.’s (2009) model of moral injury. I’m using theoretical TA underpinned by critical realist ontology and constructivist epistemology that foregrounds researcher subjectivity in the co-creation of knowledge. I received feedback that the philosophical stance of the project does not fit comfortably with theoretical thematic analysis. I’m trying to establish whether a) it’s because my argument was weak and not presented clearly or, b) whether CR ontology, constructivist epistemology and theoretical TA are fundamentally incompatible. Any thoughts on this?
Virginia Braun's and Victoria Clarke's paper will help you:
https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/preview/1043068/thematic_analysis_revised_-_final.pdf
Can you say more about what you mean by "theoretical thematic analysis"?
Barun and Clark recently revised their thematic analysis method and named it reflexive approach. Under the reflexive approach, they noted five possible variations namely, inductive, deductive, semantic, latent, constructionist, and critical realist. I would say you can choose any of the two: constructionist and critical realist. The former is based on the assumption that a given phenomenon is created by the data, while the later is based on the idea that researchers analyze data report about an assumed reality. You may want to look at the following sources.
https://www.psych.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/thematic-analysis.html
https://cdn.auckland.ac.nz/assets/psych/about/our-research/documents/Answers%20to%20frequently%20asked%20questions%20about%20thematic%20analysis%20April%202019.pdf
I would not say the Braun Clark rename Thematic Analysis as Reflexive Analysis. Instead, they now define three different versions of Thematic Analysis, of which their preferred one is what the call "Reflexive Thematic Analysis." (There terms for the other two versions are "coding reliability TA" and "codebook" approaches.)
David L Morgan Thank you for your interest in this question. I am using Braun and Clarke's (2006, 2012, 2013) version of TA in a deductive way to support theory-driven analysis. I will be analysing the qualitative data obtained from semi-structured interviews through the lens of 'moral injury' - a particular theory which I believe provides a potentially useful framework for analysing humanitarian workers' accounts of moral conflict.
The philosophical stance underpinning the study is critical realism because it combines ontological realism with epistemological relativism, which is argued to facilitate the aims of the project as it supports the use of theory in generating understanding whilst at the same time recognising that theory and knowledge is historically and culturally situated, and co-constructed between the researcher and participant.
I am trying to put together a clear argument for why I chose theoretical or deductive TA over, for example, constructivist GT or even qualitative content analysis or framework analysis.
Do you have any thoughts/papers stating some of the key difference between these approaches? Based on what I have read on other threads here, I think for constructivist GT, I can argue that it is primarily concerned with generating theory whereas I had an a priori theory in mind from the outset so constructivist GT (which is primarily inductive?) was not appropriate...Does that make sense?
I am a bit stuck on how to build an argument for why I didn't use qualitative content analysis or even framework analysis as they could have been good alternatives had I known about them earlier in my research career!
You should take a look at Braun and Clarke's more recent work, where they label their preferred version of TA as "reflexive thematic analysis" to distinguish it from more deductive approaches that begin with a codebook in place. (See the Q & A link from Ahtisham Younas and then go to the entry for "Reflexive TA in context: contrasts with other analytic approaches").
With regard to qualitative content analysis, I personally do not see any way that it differs from the more deductive versions of TA, because both of them use a codebook that has pre-existing origins.
With regard to framework analysis, in their recent work Braun and Clarke explicitly exclude it from their version of reflexive thematic analysis, and instead treat it as a kind of "codebook TA."
With regard to constructivist GT, one of Charmaz's key principles is to avoid all preconceptions except the most general "sensitizing concepts." So, if you did have theoretical ideas in mind from the beginning, then her approach would not be a good fit.
Interestingly, I did some searching in my collection of Braun and Clarke articles, and found two places where they say that they have used a "critical realist ontology" in their research. One is with regard to their work on childfree women, and the other is with regard to work of their co-author, Nicola Rance, on eating disorder.
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