Psychology21 papers
LLMs in qualitative psychology
Emerging applications of large language models in qualitative psychological research methodology as well as the critics.
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Evgeny Smirnov
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Prompt Engineering for Large Language Model-Assisted Inductive Thematic Analysis
Khalid, Muhammad Talal & Witmer, Ann-Perry (2025)
- Published
- Oct 24, 2025
- Journal
- Social Science Computer Review · Vol. 44 · No. 3
- DOI
- 10.1177/08944393251388098
At a GlanceAI
A four-step prompt-engineering framework aims to make LLM-assisted thematic analysis more rigorous and reproducible.
SummaryAI
LLMs may reduce the time and cost of inductive thematic analysis, but ad hoc prompting can make results difficult to trust, explain, or reproduce. This paper reviews how existing studies incorporate LLMs and prompt engineering into thematic-analysis workflows, then proposes a structured four-step prompting process. It also discusses advanced prompting techniques and identifies research gaps, offering practical guidance for more methodologically rigorous LLM-supported qualitative research.
Method SnapshotAI
A literature review is used to map LLM-assisted inductive thematic analysis and derive a structured prompt-engineering process.
BackgroundAI
Basic knowledge of qualitative thematic analysis, large language models, and prompt engineering is needed.
Prompt engineering was important... a few years ago. Today it's better to focus on the methods that can overcome this limitation.
— ES