A Pragmatic View of Thematic Analysis

Abstract

Ethnographic interviews have become a commonly used qualitat ive methodology for collecting data (Aronson, 1992). Once the information is gathered, res earchers are faced with the decision on how to analyze the data. There are many ways to anal yze informants' talk about their experiences (Mahrer, 1988; Spradley, 1979; Taylor & Bogdan, 1984), a nd thematic analysis is one such way. Although thematic analysis has been described (Benner, 1985; Leininger, 1985; Taylor & Board, 1984), there is insufficient literature that outlines the pragmatic process of thematic analysis. This article attempts to outline the procedure for perform ing a thematic analysis.