This methods paper provides a comprehensive guide to applying template analysis in qualitative research, highlighting its flexibility and limitations.
This methods corner paper provides a practical and comprehensive overview of template analysis as a qualitative data analysis method. It emphasizes the method’s flexibility in terms of philosophical positioning, template development, and methodological approach, accommodating both deductive and inductive strategies. Potential limitations of template analysis are also discussed. To illustrate its practical application, the article outlines the step-by-step procedure of template analysis, employed in a previous study: (i) development of a list of a priori themes, (ii) data familiarization and subdivision into subsets, (iii) preliminary coding, (iv) initial template development and clustering, (v) team meeting, (vi) iterative coding, (vii) team meeting, (viii) application of the final template to the dataset, (ix) template visualization, and (x) data interpretation.
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Campens et al. (2026) studied this question.
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