4.5.1 An analysis with (predefined) themes: a deductive approach

Adapted from Paillé and Muchielli , 2011.

The thematic analysis is a process to reduce data. It is not a deep analysis, but rather to describe the topic(s) appearing in the corpus. “Thematization” is a preliminary step in all types of analysis of qualitative data. It consists of transposing the corpus into a number of themes issued from the analyzed content and according to the problematic.

A first step is the location, i.e. the listing of all the themes pertinent for the research question. The second step is to document it: identify the importance of specific themes, repetitions, crosschecks, what goes together, what goes opposite…