Reflexive thematic analysis is a type of thematic analysis that centers the researcher’s interpretation of the data.
Reflexive thematic analysis acknowledges the subjective nature of data interpretation—rather than focusing on uncovering some “ground truth” in the data, researchers are encouraged to engage with their data and use their own knowledge and experiences for interpretation and analysis.
Read this FAQ: What is reflexive thematic analysis?
In their 2006 paper, researchers Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke outlined the following 6 steps for conducting thematic analysis:
Read this FAQ: What are Braun and Clarke’s 6 steps to thematic analysis?
A theme is an idea or pattern that recurs throughout a dataset and is related to a specific research question.
The identification of themes is a core component of thematic analysis, which is a research method commonly used to analyze qualitative data.
Read this FAQ: What is a theme?
Descriptive research is used to describe a person, place, or phenomenon as it naturally occurs. Descriptive research can answer “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” or “how much” questions but not “why” questions.
Consider the following examples of descriptive research questions:
Read this FAQ: What are some descriptive research examples?
As its name suggests, descriptive research describes something. A researcher conducting descriptive research does not attempt to manipulate any variables; they measure a phenomenon of interest as it naturally occurs.
Descriptive research cannot establish cause-and-effect relationships, but it can be useful for generating hypotheses or learning more about an unfamiliar topic.
Read this FAQ: What is the goal of descriptive research?
Consider the following common descriptive research methods.
Read this FAQ: What are the types of descriptive research?
Descriptive research describes something as it naturally occurs. Because researchers do not manipulate any variables, descriptive research cannot be used to characterize “cause-and-effect” relationships.
In contrast, experimental research involves manipulating an independent variable to see how it impacts a dependent variable. Experimental research can be used to investigate “why” questions and establish cause-and-effect relationships.
Read this FAQ: What is the difference between descriptive and experimental research?
Longitudinal studies are broadly categorized as prospective (researchers recruit participants and collect their data over the following years) or retrospective (researchers use an existing longitudinal dataset to “look back in time” at factors contributing to an outcome of interest).
Specific longitudinal study designs include the following.
Read this FAQ: What are the types of longitudinal studies?
There is no minimum duration for longitudinal studies. Some are only a few days or weeks long, but many last for years or even decades.
The only requirement for a study to be considered longitudinal is that data are collected repeatedly from participants.
Read this FAQ: How long is a longitudinal study?
In a repeated cross-sectional study, the same population is studied at multiple time points. At each time point, data are collected from a different sample of the population.
A repeated cross-sectional study is a type of longitudinal study because data are collected repeatedly over a period of time.
However, as the name suggests, it also resembles a cross-sectional study. Data are obtained from each group of participants at a single time point, and this process is repeated several times.
Repeated cross-sectional studies are helpful for studying changes in a population over time.
Read this FAQ: What is a repeated cross-sectional study?
