Course How to design and conduct a qualitative content analysis in a qualitative study or a systematic review

The course P310/05 How to design and conduct a qualitative content analysis in a qualitative study or a systematic review is being offered by the Graduate School of Health, Aarhus University, spring 2026.

Criteria for participation: University degree in medicine, dentistry, nursing, or Master’s degree in other fields and/or postgraduate research fellows (PhD students and research-year medical students).

Requirements for participation: Students are accepted on the course based on project abstracts. Therefore, when signing up for the course, the applicant submits a 1-page document with 1) Name, background, affiliations, and 2) Short description of the project (abstract).

Aim: 
The aim is to introduce to the conduct of a qualitative content analysis, and enable the participants to design and plan a qualitative content analysis. The participants will be able to apply qualitative content analysis, to make consistent and well-informed analytical choices, and to reflect on relevant methodological issues related to their study design and plan of conduct.

The course is relevant both for students who are planning to conduct a qualitative study or literature review, and for students who will use the qualitative content analysis to analyze their conducted material (e.g., interviews, field notes, transcripts, documents, articles).

Learning outcomes: 

• Knowledge on the background, theoretical foundation and the potential of content analysis.
• Describe the main steps in conducting a qualitative content analysis.

• Design a plan for using qualitative content analysis in your own study, including: formulate specific research questions, specify the plan of conduct including the analytical steps to be performed in your study, and discuss own and co-participants’ choices and considerations focusing on the validity and reliability of the analysis.
• Apply strategies to strengthen the quality of studies using qualitative content analysis, focusing on validity, reliability, transparency, and transferability in conducting and presenting a qualitative content analysis.
• Discuss methodological issues in qualitative content analysis, including methodological reflections in relation to own project designs and plans for analyzing own data material.

Workload: The full workload of the course is expected to be 70 hours

Instructors: 

Cecilie Nørby Lyhne, Associate Professor, PhD, MSc in Public Health,

Jens Thisted, Emeritus VIP, mag.art,

Merete Bjerrum, Associate Professor, PhD, MA

Venue: Aarhus University, Aarhus (other)

Participation in the course is without cost for:

• PhD students, Health Research Year students from Aarhus University
• PhD students enrolled at partner universities of the Nordoc collaboration
• PhD students from other institutions in the open market agreement for PhD courses

Course dates:

• 16 March 2026 09:00 - 16:00
• 17 March 2026 09:00 - 16:00
• 19 March 2026 09:00 - 16:00
• 20 March 2026 09:00 - 16:00