Template Analysis of a Longitudinal Interprofessional Survey: Making Sense of Free-Text Comments Collected Over Time

• DOI: 10.22230/jripe.2022v12n1a337
• Publication Date: 2022-02-01T13:19:21Z
• Authors: Melanie Jane Brown; Sue Pullon; Eileen McKinlay; Lesley Gray; Ben Darlow
• Keywords: Qualitative property

Surveys are widely used in interprofessional education (IPE) research and these often collect free-text data. The potential contribution of data to analysis interpretation is missed through separate reporting qualitative quantitative results, or analyses being superficial limited subsets There little published guidance on how maximize the use integration comments with responses large datasets collected over multiple years. Analysis all comments, within context their related answers, enables exploration changes participants’ construction meaning time. This article describes we template analyze 3,626 responses, as part a five-year survey exploring impact an IPE program health professionals’ attitudes teamwork early careers. We outline main procedural steps undertaken by team researchers share our insights into methodological challenges encountered. aims inspire other at planning stage proposals, assist them practical ideas during extraction, management, analysis, datasets. conclude that has methodologically sound, pragmatic utility longitudinal