Research Methods
Theme or Topic?
Three clusters of coded extracts, four candidate statements each. One names the subject matter, one makes an analytic claim, one is a useful staging post, and one asks the data to carry something it cannot.
Fictional — the same invented extracts used across this module's qualitative tools
Learning objective
By the end you should be able to tell a topic summary from a developed theme, and name the central organising concept a theme needs.
About 20 minutes. Nothing you do here is saved or sent anywhere.
A topic label is not a mistake
Early in an analysis, grouping extracts under "asking for help" is exactly the right thing to do. It becomes a problem only when it appears in a results section as though it were a finding.
- Answer the opening question to unlock the challenge.
- Read the cluster of codes and quotes at the top of the stage.
- Classify each of the four candidate statements.
- Check, and read the note on every candidate — not only the ones you missed.
First, a judgement
The challenge
The cluster stays at the top of the stage while you work, so you can check each candidate against the codes and quotes it is supposed to organise.
Key terms
- Central organising concept
- The single idea that says why a set of extracts belongs together and what it shows. A theme needs one.
- Topic summary
- A statement of what a cluster is about. It is a stage in the work rather than an error.
- Theme
- An account built around a central organising concept, doing more than reporting the subject matter.
Three clusters, twelve candidates
A theme has a central organising concept: one idea that explains why these extracts belong together and what they show.
Cluster 1 of 3
Candidate by candidate
Second challenge — turn a topic into a theme
A student's results section has a section headed "Communication", containing extracts about unread emails, template replies and information passed between flatmates.
What this demonstrates
A theme answers "so what?", a topic answers "what about?"
"Asking for help" tells a reader what the extracts are about. "Visibility is the price: the first question converts a private gap into a public one" tells them what the analysis found. The second can be disagreed with, which is the test — a statement nobody could argue with is usually not yet a claim.
The central organising concept does the work
A theme is built around one idea, and that idea is what explains why these particular extracts belong together. If you can move an extract out of a theme without the theme changing, the theme is probably a bucket. If several extracts each show a different face of one concept, you have something.
Topic labels are a stage, not an error
Grouping extracts by what they mention is how most analyses start, and it is how you find out what you have. The failure is publishing the staging post: a results section whose headings are nouns is usually a report of what was talked about rather than an analysis of it.
Some statements are not themes because they are not payable
Three candidates in this tool fail for reasons that have nothing to do with abstraction. One asserts a cause that an interview study cannot establish. One attributes an intention to an institution nobody interviewed. One imports a psychological construct and a between-person comparison that qualitative data are not built to deliver. Reaching further is not the same as reaching outside.
For teaching elsewhere: take this activity as one self-contained block of HTML, on the clipboard or as a file. Either way it is styled so that it will not disturb the page you put it into.