2.3.1. Qualitative Analysis: Thematic and Sentiment Analysis
Thematic analysis was used to analyze and organize information and identify recurring patterns across participant responses. This method has been used to draw reasonable and meaningful conclusions from qualitative data and is a widespread method for qualitative analysis [Next, hand-coded Sentiment Analysis (SA) was conducted. SA is a process of computationally identifying and categorizing opinions expressed in a statement. This is often used to determine whether the individual’s expressed written attitude towards a particular topic is positive, negative, or neutral. For example, SA has been used to evaluate responses to social media information and text during the COVID-19 pandemic in other studies [