DE200 open university
Qualitative mini-project report
Conduct a thematic analysis of an excerpt from an interview held in the healthtalk.org website, a resource containing stories from real people collated by researchers. Then, write an empirical report of three themes you have identified in your analysis of the interview in answer to the following research question:
What themes does Morag draw on to talk about the transitional moments in her life?
Word limit: 2000 words (excluding title, abstract, references and appendices)
On the following pages you will find:
learning outcomes addressed by this assignment
student notes for this assignment.
Relevant material
The following resources will be useful in completing your report:
The topic material from Week 25, including Book 3, Chapter 5 and the online activities which discuss change and continuity across the lifespan, in particular in relation to transition.
The methods material from Week 24 on thematic analysis, and the project material in Week 26. You will also find Chapter 6 of the DE100 textbook Investigating Methods useful.
You need to identify a minimum of two relevant peer-reviewed psychology journal articles that you have found through an independent literature search. If you do not include and discuss two relevant journal articles, you will lose five marks from the overall score for your TMA. You may find it helpful to revisit the guidance in Week 2 and Week 20 on ‘Asking questions about the literature’.
DE200-23J TMA04 Transcript
the imterviw:
1 Morag: About four to five years ago I was very active, I used to cycle 50 miles three or four times a week. One of the weeks we decided, my friend and I, we’d cycle to [a distant central city]. So we cycled
down to [that central city] one weekend, came back, and then the following week we had a 100-mile
charity cycle. And before we started it, I’d driven down and I just said, “I don’t feel right, there’s
something not right,” and I couldn’t get my hands over the handlebars properly. And then after that, I
was just floored and I don’t… I didn’t have any reason why I was floored.
And then I was getting pains, I struggled to get out of bed, my husband used to have to pull me out of
bed because I couldn’t physically get up. And I was just tired all the time, I would be on – I would, I
worked, so I had to do shifts, and I was just really struggling. Really struggling with it. And I was
forgetting stuff, I was really forgetful. And at first they thought it was just a virus, that was fine. Then
they checked and everything to see if it was lupus, if it was anything like that, and all the checks were
coming back negative, negative. And then, at first, I was getting frustrated because people were saying,
“Are you sure?” and it was as if to say, well, I wouldn’t lie about it. I know that I’m not right, and because
we had the death of [my husband’s] daughter, they were saying, “You’re depressed” I says, “I’m not
depressed”. And I’d been there before because we couldn’t have our own family and I did get
depressed after that and I was on medication and everything, and it wasn’t that feeling, and I knew it
wasn’t that feeling. I tried to walk to the shop and I couldn’t even get to the shop. And I was saying it’s
not… I said, “It’s more frustration than depression because nobody’s listening to me.” It was as if to say,
I know my body, I know that my body’s not right.
Then eventually I went, I got a new GP, well, I didn’t move GPs, a new GP started at the surgery and
she kind of… she totally understood where I was coming from, you know? And, I kept saying to her,
“I’m not – people think I’m depressed and I’m not”. I am, don’t get me wrong, I was grieving, but I’d
been there, so I just… I couldn’t get it out of my head. And it was just the fact that I had to keep
repeating, repeating, repeating, but nobody sort of knew. And then she did, she said, “I think you might
have…” well, she says, “We’ll rule everything else out and if it’s not, it’s definitely fibromyalgia,” and at
the same time I was going to the chest clinic and she, the consultant there, was of the same opinion. So
that was the diagnosis.
It was so, I didn’t have… you know, it’s as if… she was just really good. She could see it herself, and I
think in a way, I wanted somebody to see it, rather than me trying to explain it and looking like there
was nothing wrong with me. You know? I had a sergeant when I was in the office through at my station,
and she didn’t realise I was in one day and she said, “Well, if it wasn’t for malingerers I would have a
full shift,” and I thought, “She’s talking about me.” And I just walked out and I went, “Morning,” and it
was her that was embarrassed. Then she had the cheek to email me one day and say, “Oh, I think I
might have it,” and I thought, [laughs] “I don’t want to know”. And I wouldn’t be like that normally, but it
was just because of the way that she treated me. I thought, no way. You can’t be saying something like
that and then coming back to me, asking for advice, so. That kind of annoyed me a bit.
Oh, I hate it. Hate it. Hate the fact that I’m not quite independent and I hate the fact that I’ve got to
depend on other people. And I mean, for all the goodwill in the world, I mean, now that they think I’m
retired, think I can… “Oh, you’ve got all day to yourself,” but I haven’t because it takes me longer to do
stuff that never used to take minutes. And I try… I mean, now I kind of volunteer at the hospice, location
hospice, but again, I can’t say to them that I’ll do a certain day because some days I can’t – I just
wouldn’t be able to do it. Other days I’ll say, if they’re short, I just cover when they’re short, which is
fine. And that way I feel like I’m putting something back, but it’s just so frustrating. And my hands are
sore constantly.
I’ve always said, once I retire I personally don’t think… when you’re in, like, police, fire brigade,
whatever, I know that you’re retiring young but you’ve still got life in you so you want to do something,
but I don’t think you should be taking jobs off other people. I think there’s enough to do… like, like the
hospice relies on a lot of volunteers, like, they’ve got the café that’s open and that relies on it’s just
volunteers. If there’s no volunteers, it doesn’t open. So there’s stuff out there that you can do because
you’re still getting a decent pay, so why take another job to give, take off somebody else that might
need it? That’s just me.
Page 2/2 – 19/05/2023 – 01:06:52
You will be conducting a thematic analysis of the interview using the skills that you learned about in DE100 in Chapter 6 of Investigating Methods and developed in Week 24 and Week 26 of this module.
We will remind you of the main phases of thematic analysis here, but it’s very important that you work through the activities in Weeks 24 and 26 to understand what is involved in each phase of analysis and to give you a chance to practise these phases before attempting TMA 04.
You should start by familiarising yourself with the data (phase 1) before attempting coding. Remember to keep the research question in mind as you read: What themes does Morag draw on to talk about transitional moments in her life?