Psychology21 papers
LLMs in qualitative psychology
Emerging applications of large language models in qualitative psychological research methodology as well as the critics.
ES
Evgeny Smirnov
All Reviews
PsychologyNiche
intermediate
Large Language Models in Qualitative Analysis: Comparing Traditional and Researcher-Interpreted Approaches
Misra, Ranjita et al. (2026)
- Published
- Jan 19, 2026
- Journal
- International Journal of Qualitative Methods · Vol. 25
- DOI
- 10.1177/16094069261426100
At a GlanceAI
Open-source LLMs can speed qualitative coding but still produce many repetitive or context-poor codes.
SummaryAI
This study tests whether privacy-friendlier open-source LLMs, Gemma2 and Llama3.1, can assist with thematic analysis of sensitive patient-interview data. Compared with researcher-generated codes, the models showed partial alignment, and deductive prompting produced more and more nuanced codes than inductive prompting. However, only about 45% of LLM codes supplied meaningful context and 22–39% were duplicates, indicating that LLMs are useful assistants rather than replacements for qualitative researchers. Domain-specific models and stronger validation may improve their reliability for healthcare communication research.
Method SnapshotAI
The study compares codes from two open-source LLMs with researcher-led inductive thematic analysis of 34 patient interviews.
BackgroundAI
Basic knowledge of qualitative thematic analysis, coding, and large language models is needed.
Note the fact that the models are outdated. Newer ones can narrow the gap.
— ES