I enrolled in Claire’s online Thematic Analysis Masterclass because I live remotely and am doing a fully digital PhD. After collecting my data, I was unsure if my colour coding to the research questions was too undergrad. I hadn’t really done any formal research since Honours. Reading her training blurb, I was shocked to come across concepts like Reflexive and Codebook, top down and bottom up, and instantly knew that I had little understanding around the families available within QA. That Claire is a psychologist also helped convince me, as she spoke my human services language.
During the two days online, I was very impressed with Claire’s ability to hold the group (35 researchers from across the globe). Her mix of theory to real world impact examples, to group exercises, to break out rooms was refreshing. Here was an academic that appreciated different learning styles and digital fatigue principles and was exremely skilled at enacting them.
At the cessation of Day 1, I told my accountant husband that I had already well and truly got my money’s worth so if something happened and I couldn’t make Day 2, there was no need to ask for a partial refund. Day 1’s separation between the big O (ontology NOT orgasm) and epistemology clicked at a deep level for me. Similarly, Claire’s one liners (e.g.: deliberate, thoughtful and explicit; pattern of shared meaning; and method not methodology) reached me in a way that reading had not. The structure and theory of the two days also increased my confidence. Being a lone researcher had me second guessing myself but attending the training increased my tenacity and competence.
I have immediately recommended Claire’s masterclass to my Social Work PhD peers and supervisees. Claire’s mix of academic credibility with her Irish approachability and expert story telling make her a gifted trainer in research context and meaning making. Whereas before I was terrified of doing the wrong thing by my participants and their data, Claire has mustered my curiosity and given me the lasso to brand it into codes, themes and descriptions. BRILLIANT and extremely useful training.
