Participatory theme elicitation: open card sorting for user led qualitative data analysis

Participatory Theme Elicitation (PTE) is a new approach to increasing user-involvement in qualitative data analysis. In this five-step method, participants independently identify themes the using open card sorting, and are supported their development of set that reflect all participant views. We describe evaluate PTE with case study, where nine lay researchers identified five core from an online intervention depressed adults. Total participation time was approximately 6 hours. Evaluation revealed high levels satisfaction process generated. The strong commitment public engagement social science research limited guidance on methods for effective participatory analysis highlight value growing need robust standardised approaches such as PTE.