Redefining Qualitative Analysis in the AI Era: Utilizing ChatGPT for Efficient Thematic Analysis

TL;DR

This paper explores how ChatGPT can be effectively used for qualitative thematic analysis, emphasizing prompt design, transparency, and understanding AI capabilities to improve research outcomes and address ethical considerations.

Contribution

It introduces a framework for prompt design in ChatGPT for qualitative analysis and investigates researchers' perceptions and ethical concerns.

Findings

Enhanced transparency and guidance improve ChatGPT's effectiveness.

Researchers' attitudes shifted from negative to positive with better understanding.

Ethical risks and perceptions influence AI integration in qualitative research.

Abstract

AI tools, particularly large-scale language model (LLM) based applications such as ChatGPT, have the potential to simplify qualitative research. Through semi-structured interviews with seventeen participants, we identified challenges and concerns in integrating ChatGPT into the qualitative analysis process. Collaborating with thirteen qualitative researchers, we developed a framework for designing prompts to enhance the effectiveness of ChatGPT in thematic analysis. Our findings indicate that improving transparency, providing guidance on prompts, and strengthening users' understanding of LLMs' capabilities significantly enhance the users' ability to interact with ChatGPT. We also discovered and revealed the reasons behind researchers' shift in attitude towards ChatGPT from negative to positive. This research not only highlights the importance of well-designed prompts in LLM applications but also offers reflections for qualitative researchers on the perception of AI's role. Finally, we emphasize the potential ethical risks and the impact of constructing AI ethical expectations by researchers, particularly those who are novices, on future research and AI development.