To saturate or not to saturate? Questioning data saturation as a useful concept for thematic analysis and sample-size rationales

The concept of data saturation, defined as ‘information redundancy’ or the point at which no new themes or codes ‘emerge’ from data, is widely referenced in thematic analysis (TA) research in sport and exercise, and beyond. Several researchers have sought to ‘operationalise’ data saturation and provide concrete guidance on how many interviews, or focus groups, are enough to achieve some degree of data saturation in TA research. Our disagreement with such attempts to ‘capture’ data saturation for TA led us to this commentary. Here, we contribute to critical discussions of the saturation concept in qualitative research by interrogating the assumptions around the practice and procedures of TA that inform these…