There are several questions here on RG that ask about the difference between content analysis and thematic analysis, so you could search for those to find more discussion of this topic.

Basically, there are a variety of approaches content analysis, ranging from the more quantitative (which involves counting) to the more qualitative (which is pretty much the same as thematic analysis). It would not be surprising to find two researchers doing almost exactly the same thing to analyze their data, except that one labelled this qualitative content analysis and the other described it as thematic analysis.

But note that that researchers have been using "themes" as an organizing format for reporting their results for a very long time -- long before Braun & Clarke (2006) labelled this approach as Thematic Analysis. So, just because someone uses on themes as a format does not mean that they self-consciously used thematic analysis.

One other lesson you might learn from this article is that the authors apparently managed to get published without having any explicit description of their analytic procedures. Whether this is desirable or not, it is not all that unusual.

There are several questions here on RG that ask about the difference between content analysis and thematic analysis, so you could search for those to find more discussion of this topic.

Basically, there are a variety of approaches content analysis, ranging from the more quantitative (which involves counting) to the more qualitative (which is pretty much the same as thematic analysis). It would not be surprising to find two researchers doing almost exactly the same thing to analyze their data, except that one labelled this qualitative content analysis and the other described it as thematic analysis.

But note that that researchers have been using "themes" as an organizing format for reporting their results for a very long time -- long before Braun & Clarke (2006) labelled this approach as Thematic Analysis. So, just because someone uses on themes as a format does not mean that they self-consciously used thematic analysis.

One other lesson you might learn from this article is that the authors apparently managed to get published without having any explicit description of their analytic procedures. Whether this is desirable or not, it is not all that unusual.

Abena - David is correct. The 'water is muddy'. The terms are often used interchangeably and adds to the confusion. You seem to have a good 'overall' grasp and I would go with that flow for your assignment - acknowledging that 'it depends' on a variety of circumstances as to why - and highlight the main ones. In essence, they become your assignment 'themes'.

David L Morgan and Dean Whitehead - thanks for your replies. I had looked at other threads, but thought providing my exact context would gain a clearer response - and it did!

My reading since confirms what you say, and I can see it's just 'one of those things' in research that's not so clear cut.

I really appreciate your responses.

The above answers are on point, the distinction is more gradational than a line in the sand.

However my understanding is that, as per Krippendorff's works on Content Analysis, is that Content analysis specifically requires a 'Unit of Analysis', a consistent segment of the data (e.g. a sentence, paragraph, response or text among many other things) that is assigned a code/theme from the Coding Scheme, with no possibility of being assigned to another code/theme.

My understanding of thematic analysis is that it requires no such thing, the coder simply assigns the themes they observe from the text. This may mean that certain lines of text in an interview transcript for example could be assigned to two or more codes/themes.

Furthermore, it is standard practice in content analysis to provide an inter-rater reliability metric these days, which is effectively impossible in thematic analysis due to the absence of a Unit of Analysis. Look up Klaus Krippendorff's work on the subject for information.

In terms of the example you gave above, it seems this paper has no Unit of Analysis or Reliability metric, both mandatory for content analysis. That's two major criticisms already. Furthermore, it seems that they are basically quantifying their thematic codes without ensuring reliability. Thus, the actual values they give mean little, as another researcher could look at the same data and come with a completely different number with the same list of codes/themes! Inter-rater reliability ensures that the coding scheme is reliable and repeatable.

My understanding however comes from the more quantitative end however, so take the above with a pinch of salt.

Paul Wilson - thank you for that additional comment. I'm not sure what you mean about 'quantifying their thematic codes' because no statistics are presented at all - only researcher observations and comments on what participants said. It really is much more like thematic analysis than any kind of content analysis I've read about, other than the caveats about how it's a bit of a 'wild west' situation when it comes to CA in general.

Appreciate your insights - every comment helps me shape my understanding.

Content analysis is just not the quantification of data.It so happens that in social science we limit the sample to express his feelings in the multiple choice questionnaire.So a good way of collecting data is PI or social media reviews etc.These can be analysed thru content analysis by word count and sentiment analysis.The same can give some crucial inputs.