A Thematic Analysis Of Friendship
Background
There is a growing of the value involved in the synthesis if qualitative data in the evidence base so as to facilitate effective and appropriate understanding of the concept of friendship. In responses to this there are various methods for undertaking the synthesis are being developed. Thematic analysis is a method that is usually used for analyzing data in primary qualitative research. The paper will be giving a report if this analysis type of analysis in a systematic review of an interview with Trevor.
It tries to bring together and integrate the findings of multiple qualitative studies. In its methodology there it will involve coding of the text, the development of descriptive themes and the generation of the analytical themes. The analytical themes will a stage of interpretative constructs, hypothesis explanation or hypothesis. The thematic synthesis will be used to combine the studies of the views of Trevor and the identified main themes to explore in the intervention studies.
The interview was based on a single participant, Trevor. Trevor suggested that friendship can be built in different ways but it needs effort to maintain. The thematic synthesis enabled us to stay close to the results of the primary interview responses, synthesizing the responses in a manner that is transparent and facilitating the explicit production of new hypothesis and concepts. There is comparison of thematic synthesis to other synthesis methods for the synthesis of the qualitative research with a discussion of context and firmness. The thematic synthesis is offered as a tested method which preserves an explicit and transparent link between conclusions and the text in the interview. It therefore preserves the principles which have customarily been essential to systematic reviewing
Introduction
Systematic review is an essential technology for the analysis if qualitative data whose aim is bringing closer research to the decision. The review makes use of rigorous and explicit methods for bringing together the results of the primary research so as to offer answers which are reliable to specific questions. The presented picture is aimed at being distorted neither by biases in the process of the interview nor by the biases from the primary research contained in the review. The methods of systematic review are developed well for certain types of research. There are still emerging methods for reviewing of qualitative research in a way that is systematic.
This paper provides a one approach of the synthesis of finding qualitative research referred to as thematic analysis. The interview was aimed at addressing the question on the way one gets a friend and how to maintain to maintain the friendship. In addressing the areas the research started including a wider scope of research which included research usually described as qualitative. The interview began with a focus specifically what aimed at understanding the friendship issue in question from the experiences and the point of view of the research in cautious manner due to the multiple responses expected (Sandelowski and Barroso, 2007).
Thematic analysis has been seen as one of a range of potential methods for research synthesis together with meta-synthesis and meta-ethnography though specifically what the method it involves is not clear, there are also few examples of being utilized in research synthesis. The term thematic synthesis is adopted as a translated method for the analysis of primary research which is usually referred to as thematic for use in the thematic review. As observed by Boyatzis (p4) thematic analysis can not be said to be another thematic analysis so as to formalize the identification and development of the themes. The theme in the interview in question is friendship.
Method
There was the searching process for the study of inclusion as it is in the statistical meta-analysis; the aim of the searching was to locate the study that was relevant. Failure of doing this could lead to undermining the statistical models underpinning the analysis and the make the results biased. The qualitative results could have been hard to get. In this study it was not possible to make use of only electronic searches.
The search was made by use of a one on one interview with one Trevor as he was asked different questions with effort spent to get the specific information. In this case there was some driving to some statistical imperative to locate every study that was relevant. It was observed that there is very little difference in the methods which were to be used for inclusion in a Meta analysis.
To assess the quality of a research that is qualitative can attract a lot of debate with little consensus in regard of how quality ought to be assessed, who had to assess the quality and indeed whether the quality can or should be assessed in relation to quantitative research at all. This issue was considered and it found necessary to be undertaken to ensure that the conclusions made were reliable.
The criteria used for assessment was based on the quality of the interview responses, rationale, context, methods and findings. Other criteria laid their emphasis on sufficiency of the strategies used for establishing the validity and reliability of the tools of collection of data as well as the analysis methods and therefore the validity of the findings. The final criteria was concerned with the appropriateness of the methods of study to ensure that the findings concerning the barriers to and the facilitators for helping the interviewee to offer their views accurately.
The qualitative studies are what counts as data or findings. The problem is easily addressed in the event that a statistical meta-analysis is conducted. The key concepts are what could be extracted from published reports on the subject of friendship to ensure that it does not shift its focus. This also ensured that the analysis was basically based on the obtained response from the interviewee (Seale, 1999).
Though it is relatively easy to identify data in the study which in this case is the interview normally in the form of quotations from Trevor, it was somewhat hard to identify main concepts or succinct summaries or findings, particularly for studies that had undertaken relatively simple analysis and had not gone much further than to describe what the interviewee – Trevor had said. In resolving this problem the study findings were taken to be all of the texts indicated as results or findings from the interview.
The study made use of about three stages which somewhat were overlapping involved the free line by line coding of the finding of the primary studies, the organization of free codes into the related areas for conducting themes which were descriptive and the development of analytical themes.
Results
There were various issues which emerged from the studies of the friendship. Firstly the friendship can result from various ways. Secondly one can get friends from the friends he make initially. Thirdly there are various factors which make someone to determine which friends to make. Fourthly for a friendship to run out smoothly it is dictated by various factors. Fifthly not all friends can be long lasting some are short term others are long term depending on their character.
Discussion
Friendship as understood in this interview is a distinctively a personal relationship that is basically grounded in concerns on the part of the friend for the welfare of the other, for the other for the sake of the other person. This usually involves some intimacy degree. For this reason friendship is integral top our lives, partly because the special concern we have for our pals ought to have a place within the broader set of concerns and these concerns include concerns of morals and partly because our friends can assist in shaping our character.
In consideration of this centrally, essential question arise in relation to the justification of friendship and, in this context, whether it is permissible to trade up in the event someone new comes along, and also in regard to the possibility of reconciling the demands of friendship with the morality demands in the cases in which the two seem to be in conflict.
Friendship and love seem to be tied together as a single topic; however there seem to emerge considerable differences among them. As observed in the interview love emerges to be an evaluative attitude which is directed at particular persons as such, an attitude which one may take towards someone else whether or not that love is reciprocated and whether or not we have an established relationship with that person.
Essentially friendship appears to be a kind of relationship which is based on a specific kind of concern a person has for the other as the person she is, and although we must make conceptual room for the idea of unrequited love, unrequited friendship does make sense. As a result the accounts of relationship have the tendency of understanding that it not merely because of reciprocal love of some nature in conjunction with mutual acknowledge of this form of love, but with basically involving significant interactions between the friends. As being in this sense a certain form of relationship.
However, questions can come up in relation to precisely how to distinguish relationships which are romantic and based on Eros from relationships of friendship which are based on philia, because both of them involve considerable interactions between the parties that are involved which stem from a kind of reciprocal love that is responsive to merit.
Observing keenly the two differ as romantic love usually possess a kind of sexual involvement which is not in friendship, however as asked by Thomas (1989), is that adequate to explain the real difference between the two terms. Badhwar (2003) appears to have this thought as he claims that sexual involvement enters into love that is romantic partly through a passion and yearning for the physical union, whereas friendship instead involves a desire for a more identification psychologically. But it is not clear exactly how to understand this. Many will ask what form of psychological identification or intimacy describes friendship.
Reference
Badhwar, N.K., (1987) “Friends as Ends in Themselves”, Philosophy & Phenomenological Research, 48:1–23
Boyatzis, R.E. (1998) Transforming Qualitative Information. Cleveland: Sage publishers
Sandelowski M and Barroso J. (2007) Handbook for Synthesising Qualitative Research, New York: Springer
Seale C. (1999) Quality in qualitative research. Qual Inq. Vol 5: p465–478.
Thomas, L., (1987) “Friendship”, Synthese, Vol. p72:217–36.
