A Teaching Tool for reflexive TA: The Thematic Pantry

The Thematic Pantry is an interactive and engaging teaching tool developed by Good Health Design in collaboration with Gareth Terry at Auckland University of Technology (AUT). The tool translates the process of thematic analysis (TA) into an easy-to-understand medium that builds off the analogy of a pantry filled with ingredients (data) and grouping these together into potential meals (themes as meaningful patterns). By shifting the academic language of thematic analysis towards the universal experience of preparing food and meals, new researchers can get a taste of the process and foundational understanding of thematic analysis that can be applied with confidence to their own research.

The tool can be used as part of a facilitated class experience with details about each phase of TA incorporated via brief lectures, or run in tutorials to help embed some of the formal information about TA that might occur in a lecture context. Given the ‘data’ being used isn’t from qualitative projects, concerns about ethics and the potential for data impacting on students are reduced.

Contact Gareth if you are interested in knowing more (or purchasing the toolkit).

Please note that due to covid-related lockdowns in Aotearoa and China over 2021-2022, the expected production of the pantry has been set back to the first quarter of 2023.