Análisis de compuestos con capacidad antioxidante

The thematic analysis process was completed in multiple cycles throughout the action research process. In stage one of the action research fieldwork thematic analysis was used to identify the themes from the occupational therapists’ discussions regarding their practice knowledge of occupational therapy

assessments. This approach was more formally used and described in stages two and three to analyse the data regarding the perceptions of people with learning disabilities, their carers and other stakeholders of the occupational therapy practice

86 that they had experienced. During the meta-analysis, the phases were revisited to redefine and name the themes and to search for repeated patterns of meaning that were significant across the meta-data corpus (see Table 3.3). The final process was interpretation of the significance of these final themes to seek for broader meanings and implications in relation to the literature and occupational therapy practice within this field. The writing of the thesis is identified as phase six of the thematic analysis process as it is considered ‘an integral part of analysis’ (Braun and Clarke 2006 p 86) (see Table 3.4).

Qualitative thematic analysis, as described by Braun and Clarke (2006), is ‘the method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns (themes) within data’ (Braun and Clarke 2006, p80) and enables the data to be organised and described in rich detail. Thematic analysis was used in this research study as the authors argued that it: ‘offers an accessible and theoretically flexible approach to analysing qualitative data’ (Braun and Clarke 2006, p77). Unlike grounded theory or discourse analysis, thematic analysis is more accessible as it does not need a detailed technical or theoretical knowledge to apply the approach. The method of analysis needed to be a process that was acceptable and understood by the busy local occupational therapy practitioners who were not actively immersed in research theories and techniques. The method also needed to be flexible to be used to consider data from numerous sources such as: responses from the participants with learning

disabilities, their carers, stakeholders and the discussions and reflections in the OT co-researcher meetings.

Braun and Clarke (2006) describe thematic analysis as a flexible tool that searches for themes and patterns in data to find meanings and that this is a core skill for qualitative analysis that is not specific to one epistemological position. ‘Through its theoretical freedom, thematic analysis provides a flexible and useful research tool, which can potentially provide a rich and detailed, yet complex, account of data’ (Braun and Clarke 2006, p78). The definitions and terminology used by Braun and Clarke to describe how data are coded and themes identified were adapted by this research study (see Table 3.3). As this research study initially considered the data within the stages of the fieldwork the term ‘data corpus’ was used for all the data collecting in that stage. Therefore a new term of ‘meta-data corpus’ was used to define all the data collected across the entire research study. ‘A theme captures something important about the data in relation to the research question, and

87 and Clarke 2006, p81). Themes are discovered due to active thinking and reviewing and creating links. The themes within the data in stage two, were as far as possible identified using an inductive approach in which the themes were related to what had been said and not linked to any pre-conceived theory or expectation. In stage three, a theoretical analysis was used to consider how the changes in practice had

affected the themes and problems identified in stage two. This is further described in Section 8.2.2.

Table 3.3: Data collection and recording: glossary of terms based on

Braun and Clarke (2006, p79)

Data item Each individual piece of data collected: e.g. .a transcription of an individual interview.

Data extract Individual coded chunk of data identified and extracted from a data item

Sub-Theme Interesting/notable issue found in a data item.

Theme Patterns made of sub themes.

Data set All the data collected for a specific aspect of the action research study.

Data corpus All the data collected for each stage of the action fieldwork.

Meta data corpus

Term used in this research study to include all the data collected for the action research thesis.

Braun and Clarke (2006) set out six steps of thematic analysis which are expected to be applied flexibly (see Table 3.4). The lead researcher followed this process to review the data to identify patterns and themes. Unlike in quantitative analysis, the importance of themes was not related to a calculation of how often they occurred but to if they provided an insight into occupational therapy practice. The thematic

analysis used in this research study was a ‘contextualist’ method. This is described by Braun and Clarke (2006) as being from the critical realist tradition in which experiences of the people involved are considered within the wider meaning of their local context, which in this research study was the local occupational therapy practice.

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Table 3.4: Phases of thematic analysis summarised from Braun and

Clarke (2006, p 87)

Phase Description of the process

1. Familiarizing with the data

Transcribing, reading and re-reading- noting ideas.

2. Generating initial codes

Coding interesting features of the data across entire data set

3. Searching for themes Collating codes into potential themes, gathering all data relevant items to each.

4. Reviewing themes Checking if themes work in relation to level 1 and level 2. Generating a thematic map.

5. Defining and naming themes

On-going analysis to refine each theme and the overall story- defining each theme clearly.

6. Producing the report Final opportunity for analysis. Selecting extract examples, relating back analysis to the literature and research question.

During the action research fieldwork stages, data extracts, initial codes and preliminary themes were shared with the OT co-researcher group to reflect on if these appeared to be relevant and authentic when compared with their own interpretations of their practice experiences. The OT co-researcher discussions were used to question first assumptions, and then to share and compare the various perspectives in order to open up the debate to ’create maximum opportunity for challenge, surprise and mutual learning’ (Winter and Munn-Giddings 2001, p20). The data were collected from several sources in order to gain multiple perspectives. Bellman (2003) suggested that from the triangulation of data sources and the sharing and discussion with co-researchers ‘congruent perceptions’ (Bellman 2003, p90) could emerge. These could then prompt the OT co-researchers to reflect, plan and take actions to change their occupational therapy practice.