Theme Analysis scans your data to identify recurring topics, ideas, and patterns. QInsights groups related content into themes, generates a title for each, and provides a short description supported by references back to your data.
Supported formats:
- Word files - typically interview or focus group transcripts
- PDF files - often articles and reports
- Excel files - ideal for open-ended survey responses, discussion boards, stakeholder feedback, or social media comments
A Content-Mapping Approach, Not Coding
Theme Analysis gives you a high-level content map of your data - a starting point that highlights areas worth exploring further, not a finished thematic analysis. While the term "theme" may evoke thematic analysis approaches like Braun and Clarke's, in QInsights themes are data-driven insights that surface early to help you navigate your material. They're exploratory and pragmatic, designed to give you an actionable entry point while you stay in control of the direction and depth of the analysis.
How It Works
QInsights analyzes your selected documents and identifies 2 to 10 themes, each representing a significant topic or pattern, with a short description summarizing its relevance.
Reviewing a theme (Word and PDF)
Click Show more Details on a theme to see its prevalence - how many documents it occurs in - and how many quotes support it.
Click any document name under References to open a preview highlighting the supporting data segments in yellow. Use Next/Previous to move through them.
Highlights point you to the right region of the document, not to precisely coded segments - sometimes only half a sentence is highlighted. Treat them as pointers for validating Q's answer against your data, not as formal coding.
Exporting results (Word and PDF)
Export your results as a PDF: the first section lists all themes with their prevalence (occurs / does not occur in X% of documents).
The second part lists each theme's description and per-document references. To get a Word file, click Download, then copy the preview into a Word document.
Exporting results (Excel)
Click Show More Details on a theme to generate a detailed reference export: QInsights fetches every matching data segment (this can take a few minutes), and you can review the results - including all imported variables - before exporting.
Click Download to export a single theme, or Download all references to export every theme at once.
Interactive Exploration: Follow-up Chats
Once the themes are identified, you can ask follow-up questions about specific themes or explore the data further to refine your understanding and extract deeper insights. Thus, the themes identified by QInsights are not an endpoint but a starting point for analysis. They serve as a guide to help you:
- identify potential topics of interest to explore further
- prioritize areas for deeper investigation based on the prevalence of themes
- save time by quickly highlighting what your data is "about" before diving into more detailed analysis
To start a follow-up chat, click the Q icon at the bottom of the themes view - it opens a follow-up chat linked to that Theme Analysis in the Analysis Archive.
Click the arrow icon to expand the chat to full-screen, or again to return to the split view showing both the chat and the themes.
The Value of Theme Analysis
The value of Theme Analysis extends beyond simple identification and exploration. With the insights gained from the initial themes, you can make informed decisions on how to allocate your research efforts effectively - delving deeper into highly prevalent themes, or exploring fewer common topics that could uncover unique insights.
Ultimately, Theme Analysis in QInsights is not just about understanding what your data contains; it's about strategically using that knowledge to drive your research forward. Whether you're conducting academic research, market analysis, or evaluating user feedback, the themes provide a robust foundation for developing deeper, actionable insights that can influence real-world decisions and strategies.
By mapping out the main themes and their connections, you can develop a comprehensive understanding of your data landscape, which empowers you to navigate through your data with precision and purpose. It equips you with a content map that is both a snapshot of your current data and a compass guiding your future research directions.
Next Steps
Once you've mapped the main themes, dig deeper with Guided Conversational Analysis on a specific topic, or move to open-ended Conversational Analysis.