Braun and Clarke have always maintained that there are several ways to do Thematic Analysis, including options that develop content analytic codebooks inductively during the analysis process. That said, their versions of thematic analysis would all aim at the goal of producing themes rather than counting codes. So, if you were thinking of doing counting, then TA is not appropriate.

Moving in the other direction, Braun and Clarke's own preferred version of TA is what they call Reflexive Thematic Analysis which uses coding as a means to producing themes without generating systematic codebooks. By far the most useful introduction to their recommended approach is their 2022 textbook, Thematic Analysis, a Practical Guide.

Absolutely, in agreement with David, thematic analysis is certainly suitable. Another option would be to utilise content analysis and the article below has a nice example of this. Content analysis has a very clear methodology which involves condensation of data, coding, categorization and then the formation of themes.

Erlingsson C, Brysiewicz P. A hands-on guide to doing content analysis. Afr J Emerg Med. 2017 Sep;7(3):93-99. doi: 10.1016/j.afjem.2017.08.001. Epub 2017 Aug 21. PMID: 30456117; PMCID: PMC6234169.

David and Louse are completely right! However, I would wonder what much information short/medium answers provide you to build sound assertions/arguments.

Either you use thematic or content analysis, consider including the length or your answers as a limitation of the study. Again, I agree that those methodologies may work.

Ceri,

I think that before you can decide whether TA might be useful in your project, you need to ask yourself what exactly you want to do.

Try to use Colaizzi’s method