Thematic Analysis Practice 2

For this class, we’ll be practicing thematic analysis in a more top-down or theory-driven fashion, where we do start with some ideas about codes and themes, though we remain open to new ideas emerging from the data. We will also be taking the work we do in class and using it as the foundation for the thematic analysis homework assignment.

We have gathered some information on what motivates people to volunteer. Some of that came from background research we did earlier in the term, and some of it is coming from the interviews we are doing with volunteer coordinators and volunteers. When an agency is posting a volunteer opportunity, they are likely to be more successful in attracting volunteers if there is a good match between the motivation of the potential volunteer and the way the opportunity is described in the posting. For example, if a volunteer is motivated primarily by the desire to gain skills and experience and enhance their resume, they may be more attracted to an opportunity if it talks about learning new things, making connections, etc.

So, our research question is this: To what extent do descriptions of opportunities on the Volunteer Center web site line up with one or more of the motivations that volunteers have?

To answer this question, on 5/7/18 I gathered the first 20 descriptions of volunteer opportunities from the web site using the default sorting, with the constraint that any given agency or event could only be included once (often a single agency had multiple opportunities, and sometimes multiple agencies would be looking for volunteers for the same event. Here is a link to these descriptions:

Our job is to apply thematic analysis to these opportunity descriptions to identity how (if at all) the descriptions address motivations for volunteering. Since we have already have some ideas about what motivates volunteers, we will start out with codes for those:

  • resume – Gaining knowledge, skills, or experience
  • networking – Making connections that may provide personal or profession benefit
  • giving back – Having a sense of duty or responsibility
  • pay into system – Contributing to the system with the idea that one might be needing assistance oneself in the future
  • cause – Having a particular passion about a specific cause or organization
  • meaning – Providing purpose or meaning to life
  • social – Hanging out with people, making new friends
  • community – Feel a sense of community or sense of belonging
  • fill time – A way to keep from being bored or just sitting around at home
  • familiarization – Becoming familiar with an organization with an eye toward deeper involvement such as board membership, working there, etc.
  • required – Court-ordered community service, class project for school, etc.

In this approach to thematic analysis, we do approach the data looking for specific things. However, we also want to allow the data to challenge our initial ideas. So, we may end up revising the initial set of codes or adding additional codes to our list.

Now that we’ve had our class meeting, here are some notes on what we discussed, as well as the list of revised codes that you’ll be using for the thematic analysis homework.