Qualitative Researcher’s Emotional Journey of Reflexive Thematic Analysis

• In Event: Friday Roundtable Session 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: (Re)visiting Reflexivity: Positions, Relations, and Contexts (Table 6)

Abstract

Data analysis as a qualitative researcher can be overwhelming. The sheer volume of data collected in qualitative research and the nature of the data require labor-intensive and time-consuming analysis. The in-depth and prolonged engagement with the research topic, participants, and data can lead to emotional and mental exhaustion, also known as researcher fatigue (Kumar & Cavallaro, 2018). This paper is focused on how a qualitative researcher developed data analysis through Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA) while journeying through emotions. This paper explicitly guides qualitative researchers through the analytical process of RTA via a retrospective analysis, emphasizing how embracing, rather than dismissing, the emotional shifts can magnify data interpretation's depth and richness, hence reinforcing the essentiality of recognizing these emotional trajectories.

Authors

• Keirah Comstock, University of Rochester

• Nancy Ares, University of Rochester

• Jayne C. Lammers, Edmentum/University of Pennsylvania