What is thematic analysis? The six phases, explained

Thematic analysis, defined

Thematic analysis takes qualitative text — interview transcripts, open survey answers, or the findings sections of published studies — and produces a structured account of the patterns inside it. Rather than summarising, it identifies codes (short labels attached to specific excerpts) and clusters those codes into themes that capture a recurring idea, each supported by evidence you can point to.

That evidence trail is the point. A theme without codes and quotes behind it is just an opinion; a theme with them is a finding your marker, supervisor, or reviewer can check. The difference between the two is what examiners mean by rigour.

The six phases of reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke)

1. 1. Familiarisation. Read the data closely, more than once, noting first impressions.
2. 2. Generating codes. Attach concise labels to meaningful segments of text, staying close to what the data actually says.
3. 3. Constructing themes. Group related codes into candidate themes.
4. 4. Reviewing themes. Check each candidate against the coded extracts and the whole dataset; merge, split, or drop.
5. 5. Defining and naming. Write a crisp definition and an evocative name for each theme.
6. 6. Reporting. Present themes with representative quotes and an analytic narrative.

Braun and Clarke stress that the phases are not a rigid recipe — analysis moves back and forth between them. But naming the phases in your methods section, and showing work from each, is what makes the analysis defensible.

Braun & Clarke isn't the only framework

Depending on your discipline and research question, another approach may fit better. Thematic synthesis (Thomas & Harden) was designed specifically for synthesising findings across studies in systematic reviews. Framework analysis (Ritchie & Spencer) charts codes into a matrix and is common in health and policy research. Grounded theory builds categories toward an emerging theory through constant comparison, and qualitative content analysis produces a descriptive category system. If a handbook or supervisor names a method, use that one — and see inductive vs. deductive coding for how coding style differs between them.

Thematic analysis across studies

Students most often meet thematic analysis in a literature review: fifteen papers on your topic, each with its own findings, and a chapter that must say what they mean together. The process is the same — code each study's findings, then cluster codes across studies — but doing it by hand across thousands of words takes weeks. See how to synthesise findings across studies for a step-by-step walkthrough.