Understanding and Identifying ‘Themes’ in Qualitative Case Study Research

Abstract

Themes are at the heart of any qualitative research approach. Themes cannot be observed as they are perceptions, experiences, feelings, values and emotions residing in the minds of participants/respondents of a research. If a researcher feels that a theme is visible and no extra effort will be needed to extract, she may be confusing with the context. Because the themes are invisible perceptions and experiences embedded in the minds of respondents, to extract them the researcher needs to ‘ask’ questions. In-depth interviews or focus group discussions are easier processes to detect the themes. Only after collecting data with either interviews or focus group discussions or both, a researcher can turn to secondary sources of data. Identification of themes that connect with the theory determines the contribution of research. Themes should be far away from the description of any facet of the context. Themes should be closer to explaining the endogenous constructs of a research. Further, often the contribution of a qualitative case study research (QCSR) emerges from the ‘extension of a theory’ or ‘developing deeper understanding—fresh meaning of a phenomenon’. However, the lack of knowledge on how to identify themes results in shallow findings with limited to no contribution towards literature. This editorial is thus dedicated to explaining the process of identifying themes to make significant contributions through a QCSR. Themes are identified with any form of qualitative research method, be it phenomenology, narrative analysis, grounded theory, thematic analysis or any other form. However, the purpose and process of identifying themes may differ based not only on the methodology but also the research questions (Braun & Clarke, 2006). For instance, a thematic analysis helps to identify common patterns emerging from data, hence it is not an appropriate method if the objective is to search for unique themes (Kiger & Varpio, 2020). While the use of grounded theory is proper when the researcher looks for significant themes which can be idiosyncratic. We are not advocating any particular analysis process for identifying themes, rather we shall focus on explaining what to look for in data so that appropriate themes can be identified.