Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

To saturate or not to saturate? Questioning data saturation as a useful concept for thematic analysis and sample-size rationales

Clarke, Victoria; Braun, Virginia

To saturate or not to saturate? Questioning data saturation as a useful concept for thematic analysis and sample-size rationales Thumbnail


Authors

Profile Image

Dr Victoria Clarke Victoria.Clarke@uwe.ac.uk
Associate Professor in Qualitative & Critical Psychology

Virginia Braun



Abstract

The concept of data saturation, defined as ‘information redundancy’ or the point at which no new themes or codes ‘emerge’ from data, is widely referenced in thematic analysis (TA) research in sport and exercise, and beyond. Several researchers have sought to ‘operationalise’ data saturation and provide concrete guidance on how many interviews, or focus groups, are enough to achieve some degree of data saturation in TA research. Our disagreement with such attempts to ‘capture’ data saturation for TA led us to this commentary. Here, we contribute to critical discussions of the saturation concept in qualitative research by interrogating the assumptions around the practice and procedures of TA that inform these data saturation ‘experiments’ and the conceptualisation of saturation as information redundancy. We argue that although the concepts of data-, thematic- or code-saturation, and even meaning-saturation, are coherent with the neo-positivist, discovery oriented, meaning excavation project of coding reliability types of TA, they are not consistent with the values and assumptions of reflexive TA. We encourage sport and exercise and other researchers using reflexive TA to dwell with uncertainty and recognise that meaning is generated through interpretation of, not excavated from, data, and therefore judgements about ‘how many’ data items, and when to stop data collection, are inescapably situated and subjective, and cannot be determined (wholly) in advance of analysis.

Citation

Clarke, V., & Braun, V. (2021). To saturate or not to saturate? Questioning data saturation as a useful concept for thematic analysis and sample-size rationales. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 13(2), 201-216. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676X.2019.1704846

Journal Article Type Review
Acceptance Date Dec 10, 2019
Online Publication Date Dec 26, 2019
Publication Date Mar 1, 2021
Deposit Date Dec 11, 2019
Publicly Available Date Jun 27, 2021
Journal Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health
Print ISSN 2159-676X
Electronic ISSN 1939-845X
Publisher Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 13
Issue 2
Pages 201-216
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676X.2019.1704846
Keywords Codebook; coding reliability; data adequacy; information power; information redundancy; interpretation; meaning; reflexive; sample; theoretical saturation
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/4820803
Publisher URL https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rqrs21/current

Files


To saturate or not to saturate? Questioning data saturation as a useful concept for thematic analysis and sample-size rationales (912 Kb)
PDF

Licence
http://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved

Publisher Licence URL
http://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved

Copyright Statement
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health on 26/12/2019, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2159676X.2019.1704846.





Related Outputs



You might also like



Downloadable Citations