Word Association Thematic Analysis: Theme Detection

Abstract

A word association analysis (WAA) with too many significant terms to list individually (e.g., more than 15–25) needs a method to group the words together for reporting. Detailing long lists of significant terms is undesirable because they would be difficult for the reader to digest. Moreover, the information conveyed by the terms may overlap or could be better understood when these connections are explicit. This is achieved in this chapter with a thematic analysis of the WAA terms (Figure 1.1). The thematic analysis (TA) groups together related terms so that a small set of coherent themes can be reported instead of a long list of terms. The grouping exercise can also help with interpreting the individual terms by providing additional perspectives on them.