Practise Edexcel Psychology questions analysing qualitative responses by coding patterns and themes, then evaluating deductive and interpretive decisions.
Elijah has been asked to investigate whether today's teenagers feel more stressed compared to teenagers ten years ago and twenty years ago.
He created a questionnaire that contains open questions. Elijah asked 10 teenagers, 10 people in their mid-twenties and 10 people in their mid-thirties to answer them.
Once Elijah had all the questionnaires back, he noted down the age of the participants and carried out a thematic analysis on the data.
Describe how Elijah could carry out a thematic analysis on his data.
AO2 (4 marks)
Credit up to four marks for accurate description in relation to the
scenario.
For example:
- Elijah could take a deductive approach and decide what themes
about stress he will look for in the questionnaires before he reads
through them (1). Elijah could read through the questionnaires
about stress and decide which themes to use if he decides on an
inductive approach (1). When he has the themes for stress Elijah
will decide on what codes go within the themes such as 'not
sleeping' may go in a behavioural theme (1). Once Elijah has
decided on what themes he will use to measure stress he will
calculate how often the themes occur in all the questionnaires (1).
Look for other reasonable marking points.
Generic answers score 0 marks.
(4)