webinar 045 Beyond Themes Emerged

This webinar discusses the second (expanded) volume of this Taylor & Francis book (2025), which contains all new content. Áine Humble and Elise Radina, the editors of the book, first discuss the process of putting together the book. The purpose of each volume was to go beyond simple statements about data analysis such as "themes emerged", which offer little explanation about the realities of qualitative analysis. Instead, the book offers detailed descriptions that recognize the complexity of qualitative data analysis and the hard work and researcher agency that result in published qualitative research. CAQDAS programs mentioned in the book are ATLAS.ti, Dedoose, MAXQDA, and NVivo. Additional technologies were also used, including cloud-based programs and instant messaging programs.

Sara Grummert and Siduri Haslerig discuss chapter 11. Guided by a constructivist epistemology and Agenda-Setting theory, they describe how they used Dedoose for video analyses to identify media priming and racialized production decisions in college football games. Directly analyzing video instead of transcripts allowed the authors to identify layers within video data (e.g., visuals, commentary, text and graphics, tone and intonation, and production decisions) that would have been rendered invisible if they conducted analysis based only on transcripts. They describe how using Dedoose, a cloud-based qualitative data analysis application, enabled them to directly code the video data and use the constant comparative method in a dynamic way that elicited rich findings.

Meredith Fort and Cornelia Santos discuss chapter 8. Employing thematic analysis, she and her colleagues describe how they used ATLAS.ti and Genogram Analytics software to investigate the role of family relationships in diabetes and hypertension management. They describe how visual methods such as genograms and ecomaps supplemented their interviews and observations to allow for visualizing and understanding relationships in families and communities. They will describe how they used the basic features of ATLAS.ti for transcript analyses and used Genogram Analytics to create professional genograms for presentation.

The webinar ends with questions and discussion.

Contributors to this week's webinar were as follows:
Áine Humble, PhD, is Professor in the Department of Family Studies and Gerontology at Mount Saint Vincent University in Nova Scotia, Canada. She was a MAXQDA trainer from 2008-2023, and her research interests include LGBTQ families and aging individuals, healthy aging, family rituals, qualitative data analysis, and CAQDAS.

Elise Radina, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Family Science and Social Work and Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs for Miami University, Ohio. She is a qualitative methodologist whose research focuses broadly on families and health.

Elise and Áine are the co-editors of the 2019 (Vol 1) and 2025 (Vol 2) book, How qualitative data analysis happens: Moving beyond “themes emerged”. (Taylor and Francis). The 2019 Volume won the 2020 Anselm Strauss Award for Qualitative Research from the National Council on Family Relations.

Sara Grummert, PhD, is Academic Director for the Institute for Mixed Methods Research in California.

 Siduri Haslerig, PhD, is Associate Dean and Associate Professor at Boise State University in Idaho.

Meredith Fort, PhD, is Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Systems, Management and Policy, Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health at Colorado School of Public Health Aurora, Colorado

Cornelia Santos, PhD, is Assistant Professor, Colorado School of Public Health, Aurora, Colorado. She was formerly with the Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health.
Many thanks also to Sarah L Bulloch, PhD for facilitating a fascinating discussion at the end.