Hello, I'm Rob Bowman
on the behalf of myself,
Camille, Kellie, Anja and Gavin
I'll be presenting our paper titled
using thematic analysis in healthcare HCI at CHI a scoping review
In healthcare HCI we're interested
in how technology can be used to support people with their health
to study this we often conduct qualitative research
qualitative research helps us understand people's experiences
we use this understanding to inform the design of future technology
qualitative research involves data collection
this data may regard a range of topics such as
people's experiences of a specific health condition
of existing healthcare technology
or of new healthcare technology
we may collect data for this in a range of ways such as
interviews, surveys, or user reviews
there is then qualitative analysis whereby we attempt to make sense
of the data we've collected in relation to our research questions
from our analysis we create some research outputs
these outputs serve to represent and communicate the experiences we were studying
often this output involves some sort of design insight
if our research is achieving its purpose these outputs
should be influencing the design of future healthcare technology
and in turn influencing people's experiences of health and care
as such the success of our research is limited by how we analyze our data
qualitative analysis is not simple it involves skill, creativity, and interpretation
when analyzing data our own individual life experiences will impact how we interpret it
this means different researchers may interpret the same data differently
differences in interpretation may in turn lead to different design insights
as people's experiences of health and care can vary hugely
in part due to systematic discrimination and inequality
these differences may be substantial
we need analysis techniques that allow us to effectively understand
and represent the experiences of our participants
as well as to develop and communicate design insight from them
if we don't do this successfully we risk negatively influencing the design
of healthcare technology and even causing harm
the term thematic analysis
or TA
is used to describe a range of approaches for qualitative analysis
in recent years the number of CHI papers on the topic of healthcare
that report an analysis termed thematic analysis has increased rapidly
this represents a change in research practice
given the importance of analysis this change is one that warrants careful consideration
broadly TA approaches involve the coding of data and the creation of themes
however they can vary meaningfully
for instance they can differ by how differences in researcher
interpretation are accounted for and what constitutes a theme
in qualitative research more broadly
there is considerable discourse around how TA is being used
central to this is a 2006 paper by Braun and Clarke
this paper describes a TA approach that become very highly cited
it is argued however that the approaches of many
work citing paper are inconsistent with the approach the paper describes
so what's the story of the rise of TA in healthcare HCI at CHI
this rise could suggest TA approaches can be very effective for healthcare HCI research
researchers have chosen to use thematic analysis
and they've chosen to use specific thematic analysis approaches
we believe they'll have had good reasons for making these decisions
and seemingly more of us are making these decisions
if we study how TA is being used we may be able to learn how to use it more effectively in the future
Something we should also consider is local norms
the publication of work using TA sets precedent for future work to do the same
this process can allow for norms to develop
norms that may not reflect good research practice
we need to be cautious of this and give norms careful consideration
this paper presents our work to understand the use of TA in healthcare HCI at CHI
from this we've tried to learn how future work can make more effective use of TA
to achieve this we conducted a scoping review
which is a rigorous and transparent literature review approach
the purpose of this review was to describe research practices
we were not attempting to evaluate work against some good practice criteria
we conducted our review informed by established good practice guidance
this included developing and pre-registering a review protocol
our review covered a decade 2012-2021 of CHI proceedings
we included the papers that were on the topic of health or healthcare
and that reported an analysis termed thematic analysis
78 papers reporting 100 TAs were included
we looked at each paper closely and attempted to chart a large number of characteristics
at a high level we wanted to chart
what TA is being used for
some questions this included were
what was health focus
what was the HCI focus
what data has been analyzed
and what was the output of the analysis
we also want to understand how TA is being conducted
some questions this included were
what TA approaches are being used
how is data being coded
how are themes being created
how are researchers accounting for interpretation
and how are researchers collaborating
in addition we wanted to understand how TA is being reported
what are researchers choosing to report
and what are they leave out
ultimately as this work is a literature review
everything is through this lens of what is being reported
we anticipated this work would be fairly straightforward
we were analyzing research studying similar topics
using similar analysis approaches
published at the same conference
and as a principle of research the research method should be clearly reported
in practice the activity was challenging
and we had to adapt to analytic approach
multiple times to account for the diversity of practices we were identifying
our analysis was quite substantial I'll share with you now a few of the highlights
from analyzing collected data
we found that TA is often being used to analyze interview data
we found descriptions of how TA is being conducted were typically light in explanation or imprecise
over half of the TAs were simply termed thematic analysis
29 percent were termed inductive
many papers cited a publication by Braun and Clarke
most of these citations were to the seminal 2006 paper
23 percent of papers did not cite a source in relation to TA
there are a small number of citations to texts on other TA approaches
it was often clear to us how the data was coded and themes created
conduct is widely framed as a team activity
sometimes the involvement of multiple researchers is explicit
but often a we terminology
for example we analyzed the data
was used
to us it was often unclear how collaboration was happening
despite the large number of citations to the work of Braun and Clarke
we found little reporting of researcher positionality
or reflexive practice
moving onto output
we anticipated that papers reporting a thematic analysis would present as part of this themes
20 percent of the TAs did not report themes
we also found that TA is often being used to generate design guidance
in our paper we discuss four areas
or opportunities to improve the use of TA going forward
informed by our analysis
we argue the importance of reporting TA practices
there are many reasons for this
at the very least
improved reporting is needed to enable readers to effectively interpret
and evaluate research
in particular
we think there is a need for greater reporting of positionality and reflexive practice
we discuss the challenges of doing this
and suggest some starting directions
our review demonstrates
that TA is largely framed as a team activity
yet it is unclear how people collaborate
again there is a need for greater reporting
we perceive that there is a lack of guidance
around how to conduct TA collaboratively
to inform researchers wanting to conduct TA as a team
we contribute a discussion of the strengths and challenges
of different collaboration approaches
finally we reflect on the research fit of TA
we question if given the type of data we often collect
and the research output we often want
if Braun and Clarke's TA approach
is a good research fit
we consider alternative approaches
thank you for listening