This site is for the version of the module that will run 9th January - 13th March 2019. The sites for the other runs of the module are still accessible here.
DENOVAN, A. & MACASKILL, A. (2012), An interpretative phenomenological analysis of stress and coping in first year undergraduates. British Educational Research Journal. doi: 10.1002/berj.3019 [Review Article]
CRESWELL, J. (2012). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: choosing among five approaches. Third Edition. Thousand Oaks. Sage. Sections on phenomenology and also Appendix C.
Note that the form of phenomenological analysis described in Creswell’s book is different from that adopted in the review article, in respect of which you will find the presentation by Michael Larkin (see the ‘resources’ page on the module website) to be more helpful.
Further Reading
ALSOP, G. & TOMPSETT, C. (2006). Making Sense of 'Pure" Phenomenography in Information and Comunication Technology in Education. Research in Learning Technology 14(3). pp. 241-259.
HOWARD, P. (2010). How Literature Works: Poetry and the phenomenology of reader response. Phenomenology and Practice. 4(1); pp. 52-67.
FINLAY, L. (2009). Debating Phenomenological Research Methods. Phenomenology and Practice. 3(1). pp. 6-25
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GEORGI, A. (2009). The Descriptive Phenomenological Method in Psychology: A modified Husserlian approach. Pittsburgh. Duquesne University Press.
MARTON, F. & BOOTH, S. (1997). Learning and Awareness. Mahwah. Lawrence Erlbaum.
NITTA, K.A., HOLLEY, M.J. & WROBEL, S.L. (2010). A phenomenological study of rural school consolidation. Journal of Research in Rural Education. 25(2). 1- 19.
SMITH, J.A. (2004). Reflecting on the Development of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis and its Contribution to Qualitative Research in Psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology. 1(1). pp. 39-54.
WOJNAR, D.M. & SWANSON, K.M. (2007). Phenomenology: An exploration. Journal of Holistic Nursing. 25(1). pp.172-180.
See the Prezi presentation on IPA (the particular form of psychological phenomenological analysis adopted in the review article)and another here, by Michael Larkin
The aim of phenomenological research is to explore the lived experience of a phenomenon. There are two principal modes of phenomenological research. The approach adopted in the review article by Denovan and Macaskill is interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), which is an approach that is used in psychological research (see the link to Larkin’s Prezi). The review article is concerned with the experience of stress and coping amongst first year undergraduates. As is common in IPA, however, they recruit only a small sample using a purposive strategy designed to ensure that the topic of the research will be relevant to all of the subjects. The kinds of decision made in selecting the ‘purposive’ sample will relate to what are seen as key variations in experiencing the phenomenon, one of Denovan and Macaskill’s subjects, for example, was an individual who had moved to a different country and a different linguistic environment. IPA derives from the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, who believed that it is not possible to access the world other than as interpretation. This applies both to Denovan and Macaskill’s subjects and, crucially, to Denovan and Macaskill themselves. Researchers engaging in IPA respond to this by attempting to make explicit their prior reading and understandings of, in this case, stress and coping so as to give some transparency to the transaction between these preconceptions and their data. In this case, extant psychological theory is recruited in the analysis of the students’ experiences. Another approach to phenomenological research is ‘descriptive phenomenology’ (DPA), which derives from the work of Edmund Husserl. Husserl aimed for a pure description of phenomena, which entailed ‘bracketing’ all preconceptions, which is to say, removing them from any influence in the description; this Heidegger believed to be impossible. In DPA the intention is to identify the essential quality of an experience, but this is NOT the case in IPA, where the researcher is looking for continuities and discontinuities in experience. DPA is a nomothetic approach, which is seeking to make claims about the experience in general; IPA is an ideographic approach that first concentrates on the individual case and then moves on to look for similarities and differences across cases. It is worth looking at the paper by Wojnar and Swanson, which provides a good introduction to the origins of the two approaches. Note that both approaches are concerned with lived experience (ie of the subjects of the research) and not with the object of the experience.
A related approach is phenomenography. There are substantial differences between phenomenography and phenomenology: like the descriptive approach, phenomenography has no place for interpretation by the researher, but it does impose a general structure on the form that analysis must take. Phenomenography also downplays the philosophical origins of phenomenology. All three approaches, however, are concerned with the exploration of subjective experience. Thus Denovan and Macaskill are not concerned with the substantive ‘facts’ of students’ lives, but with their perceived experiences. Nor are the authors claiming to have produced an analysis that will generalise to the experience of all undergraduate students (rendering questionable their comments regarding the representative nature of their sample), though they may claim that the categories of experience that they have identified may be relevant in considering experience in related contexts. In reading the Denovan and Macaskill article, consider the following questions—especially those in red—to discuss in the seminar.
• What motivated the study?
• What were the key elements of the methods used in terms of sampling, data
collection, and data analysis?
• What theoretical resources are brought to the research; how are these used in
the analysis?
• What are the resonances/dissonances between the methods used here and the
approach of classic grounded theory?
• What are the resonances/dissonances between the approach in the Denovan
and Macaskill article and those described in Creswell’s book?
• What is the main line of argument in the paper?
• How are validity and reliability affirmed in respect of the findings here?
Key Methodological Terms
• anonymity
• composite description
• descriptive phenomenological analysis
• exploratory study
• interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA)
• in-depth interview
• participant
• phenomenological approach
• population
• purposive sample
• semi-structured interview
• vignette
1. Conduct short interviews, ideally in threes: one interviewer, one interviewee, and one observer. Groups should reform twice so that everyone has a chance to be an interviewer, an interviewee and an obberver. Intervewees should not interview their interviewer.
2. Discussion of interviews and of issues relating to interview research generally.
3. Discussion of issues that have arisen so far during the course
Before the session, you should give some thought to the interview activity. You will be interviewing each other, so think of a research interest in relation to which an interview with any of your colleagues will be relevant. You should not prepare an
interview schedule, but you should think of the areas/issues that you want to discuss and formulate a starter question that also introduces your area of interest. Alternatively, you might try the classic GT approach using a ‘grand tour’ question to start with and try to access the key concerns of your interviewee. So, for example, if you ask, “How are things going with you?”, you would then follow up with probes relating to the response. In conducting the interview, the key is to maintain your concentration on what your subject is saying so that you can pick up on (probe) areas of interest. This can be quite a strenuous task, but it should not feel so to your subject.
In reflecting on your interview task after the interviews, consider the extent to which you found out what you had hoped to find out, are there points at which you might have used probes to follow up on something or whether further preliminary thought might have enabled you to put a question in a better way. Consider also the general feel of the interview: how ‘normal’ did it feel; who did most of the talking; what do you think might have been the effects of your own responses to what your interviewee said? You were probably attempting to obtain information about a setting beyond that of the interview itself: do you think this was generally successful or was the interview context itself dominant in shaping the interviewee’s responses?
The book by Bannister & Fransella provides an introduction to the Personal Construct Theory of George Kelly (1955, The Theory of Personal Constructs. New York. Norton). Whether or not you want to follow Kelly’s theory, the approach offers some imaginative ideas for interview technique, including the use of triads and repertory grids. You might also consider the technique of A.R. Luria and Jean Piaget which was the clinical interview; Luria’s work is discussed in Dowling & Brown (2009).