Why Thematic Analysis Descriptions Are Often Thin
Thematic analysis is the most widely used qualitative data analysis approach in Malaysian postgraduate theses, yet it is also among the most thinly described. Many methodology chapters state “thematic analysis was conducted following Braun and Clarke (2006)” and provide nothing further — leaving the examiner with no information about how the process actually unfolded in the specific study. This brevity is insufficient. Writing about thematic analysis in your methodology chapter means describing the specific steps of the approach as you applied them to your data, not just naming the approach and its citation.
Describing the Six Phases Specifically
Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis framework involves six phases: familiarising yourself with the data, generating initial codes, searching for themes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes, and producing the report. Your methodology chapter should describe how each phase operated in your specific study. “The researcher read all interview transcripts twice before beginning coding, making initial notes about potential patterns” is a description of Phase 1 specific to your study. “Initial codes were generated inductively from the data — 78 initial codes were produced across the 14 transcripts” describes Phase 2 specifically. These concrete details give examiners the information they need to evaluate whether the analysis was systematic.
Pay particular attention to describing how you moved from codes to themes — the Phase 3 and Phase 4 process — since this is where the analytical judgment that determines theme quality occurs. Did you use a thematic map? Did you apply specific criteria for what constituted a theme versus a code? Did you use any software to manage the coding process, and if so, which one and how? These procedural specifics transform a vague “thematic analysis was conducted” into a transparent account of a genuinely rigorous analytical process.
Addressing Reflexive Thematic Analysis
More recent scholarship by Braun and Clarke has renamed and refined their approach as “reflexive thematic analysis” to emphasise the researcher’s active interpretive role. If your study is qualitative and constructivist, the reflexive framing acknowledges that themes are constructed by the researcher through an interpretive process rather than simply extracted from the data — a position consistent with interpretivist epistemology. Acknowledging whether you are using thematic analysis in its original inductive form or in its reflexive constructivist form, and briefly explaining why that version is consistent with your epistemological position, adds a layer of methodological sophistication that examiners in Malaysian postgraduate vivas increasingly expect.
