An Iterative Approach to Qualitative Data Analysis: Using Theme,Cultural Models,and Content Analyses to Discover and Confirm a Grounded Theory of How Gaming Inculcates Resilience

Abstract

We present a qualitative data analysis framework that integrates perspectives from theme analysis, cultural models analysis, grounded theory, and content analysis. We demonstrate how these research traditions are united in their aim to, first, uncover meaningful themes and, subsequently, to understand those themes’ relationships to each other. To illustrate our approach, we present research on video gamers’ understandings of productive and detrimental responses to failure. Initial themes, cultural models, and grounded theory analysis of 10 semi-structured interviews led us to the theory that video games help players learn to cope more productively with failure, which we confirmed in a subsequent content analysis of text extracts from an online survey (N = 64). Overall, we propose that commonly employed approaches for analyzing qualitative data can be usefully conceptualized as research steps or stages, which move from the initial identification of themes to understanding their relationships, and from inductive exploration to deductive confirmation.

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