Christina Silver is the Director of the QDAS program and has a lot of experience with thematic analysis. Their session at MAXDAYS 2025 was titled “Thematic Analysis using MAXQDA.” They have a podcast and blog on thematic analysis. Silver started by explaining that thematic analysis encapsulates a range of approaches. They noted that it was popularized by Braun & Clarke and their latest textbook. Silver shared three “forms” of thematic analysis to emphasize that they have similar steps. The first phase, Silver explained, is “familiarizing yourself with the dataset.” Braun and Clarke 2021:35 say that reading and re-reading and making notes about analytic ideas are performed for each data item and the dataset as a whole. Silver explained that there is the slow, low approach highlighting words and phrases. Alternatively, the high, fast approach is using MAXDictio for word frequency and word combinations with cloud visualizations to scan. The Interactive Word Tree allows identification of phrases and their context. Taking notes and creating memos can help gather via a ‘code’. Phase 2 is coding by making “analytically meaningful descriptions.” Silver explained that Braun & Clarke discuss the idea of coding as identifying segments and collating codes with labels. Silver talked about how MAXQDA can help make the process more efficient. Phase 3 is generating initial themes: MAXQDA can help identify shared patterned meaning across the dataset with sub-code statistics, Code Matrix Browser… MAXQDA can generate frequency data and also help visualize patterns across documents. Silver shared different ways the software can help study relationships between themes. Phase 4 focuses on developing and reviewing themes. Crosstabs can do codes by documents or codes by codes, for example. Phase 5 is about refining, defining, and naming themes. This is an iterative process. Phase 6 is focused on writing! Memos, comments, paraphrases, project log, and summaries provide writing spaces in MAXQDA. Maps, models, quote matrices are tools that help visualize connections and frequencies. Silver answered several questions and spoke about approaches, including the Smart Coding tool.
