TO ADD: Phenomenological bit
#(Starks and Trinidad, 2007)
The goal in phenomenology is to study how people make meaning of their lived experience; discourse analysis examines how language is used to accomplish
personal, social, and political projects; and grounded theory develops explanatory theories of basic social processes studied in context.
The approaches converge in the analytic phase, sharing methodologies for decontextualizing and then recontextualizing data. They then diverge again in the post analytical phase, in which the research findings are framed and packaged for the target audience.
The goal of phenomenology is to describe the meaning of the lived experience of a phenomenon. It uses participant descriptions and then clusters them into categories, which when all of it is pulled together it describes the essence or commonality of the experience.
Discourse analysis seeks to understand and examine what language people use to shape, create and enact activities, relationships or identities and how shared meaning is created through language.
Grounded theory originates from sociology, specifically from symbolic interactionism, which posits that meaning is negotiated and understood through interactions with others in social processes (Blumer, 1986; Dey, 1999; Jeon, 2004).
Grounded theory seeks to develop an explanatory theory of social processes studied in the environments in which they take place (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) and by examining concepts across properties of the findings to develop an explanatory framework.
Grounded theory examines the “six Cs” of social processes (causes, contexts, contingencies, consequences, covariances, and conditions) to understand the patterns and relationships among these elements (Strauss & Corbin, 1998).
Phenomenology involves thick description and close analysis of lived experience, it contributes to deeper understanding of lived experiences by exposing and exploring more deeply taken-forgranted assumptions.
In phenomenology reality is comprehended through embodied experiences. Phenomenologists are interested in common features of the lived experience.
Starks and Trinidad (2007) offer the following example
Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour and it seems like a minute (p.1374). This suggests the experience is subjective.
Although diverse samples might provide a broader range from which to distill the essence of the phenomenon, data from only a few individuals who have experienced the phenomenon—and who can
provide a detailed account of their experience—might suffice to uncover its core elements (p.1375). DIFFERENT BETWEEN THEMATIC ANALYSIS - LARGE SAMPLE SIZE
Typical sample sizes for phenomenological studies range from 1 to 10 persons.
Grounded theory methodology specifically relies on theoretical sampling, by recruiting participants with differing
experiences of a phenomenon so as to explore multiple dimensions of the social processes under study.
The researcher continues to add individuals to the sample until she reaches theoretical saturation; that is, when the complete range of constructs that make up the theory is fully represented by the data. Although it is impossible to predict what sample size will saturate a given theory, typical grounded theory studies report sample sizes ranging from 10 to 60 persons.(p.1375)
Data collection strategies for all three approaches can use a mix of observation, interviews, and close reading of extant texts.
Through observation researchers can gather data about how participants behave in their natural settings and make meaning out of their experiences. In phenomenology observation of how participants live
in their environment through time and space provides clues about how they might embody meaning.(p.1375).
In grounded theory observation allows the researcher to see how social processes are constructed and constrained by the physical and social environments in which they are practiced.
In a phenomenological or grounded theory study the objective of the interview is to elicit the participant’s story. Both the
researcher and the participant assume that their words will be understood as spoken and intended (i.e., their words will speak for themselves). (p,1375).
The general methods of interpretation are fairly similar across the three approaches. Interpretive analysis is an iterative, inductive process of decontextualization and recontextualization (Ayres, Kavanaugh, & Knafl, 2003; Morse & Field, 1995).
During decontextualization the analyst separates data from the original context of individual cases and assigns codes to units of meaning in the texts. In recontextualization he or she examines the codes for patterns and then reintegrates,
organizes, and reduces the data around central themes and relationships drawn across all the cases and narratives. All three interpretive methods distill textual data to a set of categories or concepts from which the final product can be drawn.
Creswell (1997) has described a systematic process for coding data from a phenomenological inquiry in which specific statements are analyzed and categorized into clusters of meaning that represent the phenomenon of interest
Taken-for-granted assumptions are explored, and special attention is given to descriptions of what was experienced as well as how it was experienced. van Manen (1990) wrote that phenomenological analysis is
primarily a writing exercise, as it is through the process of writing and rewriting that the researcher can distill meaning. Analysts use writing to compose a story that captures the important elements of the lived experience.
By the end of the story the reader should feel that she has vicariously experienced the phenomenon under study and should be able to envision herself (or someone else who has been through the experience) coming to similar conclusions about what it means.
Grounded theory involves a constant comparison method of coding and analyzing data through three stages: open coding (examining, comparing, conceptualizing, and categorizing data); axial coding (reassembling data into groupings based on relationships and patterns within and among the categories identified in
the data); and selective coding (identifying and describing the central phenomenon, or “core category,” in the data) (Dey, 1999; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Ideally, each interview or observation is coded before the next
is conducted so that new information can be incorporated into subsequent encounters. Themes identified through the coding of initial interviews may also be explored in follow-up interviews.
Qualitative analysis is inherently subjective because the researcher is the instrument for analysis. Then make all the judgments about coding, categorizing, decontextualizing, and recontextualizing the data. (p.1376)
In phenomenology and grounded theory the researcher engages with the analysis as a faithful witness to the accounts in the data. (p.1376).
In phenomenology and grounded theory researchers engage in the selfreflective process of “bracketing,” whereby they recognize and set aside (but do not abandon) their a priori
knowledge and assumptions, with the analytic goal of attending to the participants’ accounts with an open mind (Gearing, 2004; Sokolowski, 2000; van Manen, 1990).
Additional reflexive practices include consulting with colleagues and mentors and writing memos throughout the analysis to help analysts examine how their thoughts and ideas evolve as they engage more deeply with the data (Cutcliffe, 2003; Finlay, 2002).
Memos also serve the function of establishing an audit trail, whereby the analyst documents her thoughts and reactions as a way of keeping track of emerging impressions of what the data mean, how they relate to each other, and how engaging with the data shapes her understanding of the initial hypotheses (Cutcliffe, 2000).
Generally speaking, phenomenological analyses produce rich thematic descriptions that provide insight into the meaning of the lived experience. Phenomenologies are often written as
anecdotes or thematic stories, drawing on elements reported from different narrators to create a blended story. Such accounts allow the reader to get a feel for what it is like to have the experience.(p.1377).
#
(Noon, 2018)
IPA is best suited to a data collection approach which will “invite participants to offer a rich, detailed, first person account of their
experiences” (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009, p. 56).
Hermeneutics is the “practice or art of interpretation” (Dallmayr, 2009, p. 23)
IPA recognises that analysis always involves interpretation, and is strongly connected to hermeneutics in its recognition of the investigator’s centrality to analysis and research (Brocki & Wearden, 2006).
IPA dictates the requirement for a double hermeneutic: “the participant is trying to make sense of their personal and social world; the researcher is trying to make sense of the participant trying to make sense of their personal and social world” (Smith, 2004, p. 40).
Interpretations are therefore bounded by both the respondent’s capacity to articulate their experiences, and the investigator’s ability to dissect them.(Noon, 2018; p.75)
As this process is invariably influenced and complicated by the researcher’s own preconceptions (Heidegger, 1962), IPA recognises that it is
impracticable to gain access to the exact personal world of another, completely or directly. The objective is, therefore, to obtain a description which gets as ‘close’ to the respondent’s view as is possible (Larkin, Watts, & Clifton, 2006).
REFS:
Smith, J. A., Flowers, P., & Larkin, M. (2009). Interpretative phenomenological analysis: Theory, method and research. London: Sage.
Dallmayr, F. (2009). Hermeneutics and inter-cultural dialog: linking theory and practice. Ethics & Global Politics, 2, 23-39.
Brocki, J. M., & Wearden, A. J. (2006). A critical evaluation of the use of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) in health psychology.
Psychology & Health, 21, 87-108.
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, 39-54.
Larkin, M., Watts, S., & Clifton, E. (2006). Giving voice and making sense in interpretative phenomenological analysis. Qualitative Research in
Psychology, 3, 102-120.
Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time. Oxford: Blackwell.
#
(Reiners, 2021)
The positivist paradigm asserted that reality was ordered, rational, and logical, Consequently, positivists assumed objectivity measured knowledge and was independent of human interaction. (p.1)
Phenomenology is an inductive qualitative research approach led primarily by the philosophers Edmund Husserl and later his student Martin Heidegger. They have slightly different interpretations of how phenomenological research is conducted.
Heidegger's interpretive phenomenology is used when the research question asks for the meaning of the phenomenon and the researcher does not bracket their biases and prior engagement with the question under study.
Whereas Husserl's descriptive phenomenology is used when the researcher wants to describe the phenomenon under study and brackets their biases (Reiners, 2021; p.1)
Heidegger's interpretive phenomenology was also extended by hermeneutics, the philosophy of interpretation.
Heidegger believed it was impossible to negate the researcher's knowledge and experiences related to the phenomenon under study, he believed this type of personal awareness of the topic under study was intrinsic to phenomenological research.
Hermeneutics moves beyond the description of core concepts of the experience and seeks meanings that are embedded in everyday occurrences (Lopez and Willis, 2004).
Heidegger an interpretive hermeneutics utilizes the hermeneutic circle method of analysis, where there is continual review and
analysis between the parts and the whole of the text. The basic tenet of the hermeneutic interpretive school of thought is that researchers cannot remove themselves from the meanings extracted from the text. The researcher becomes a part of the phenomenon. Consequently, preconceived ideas or opinions are not bracketed [2].
Heidegger’s interpretive phenomenology eliminated bracketing, asserting that impartiality was impossible because researchers became enmeshed with the experience (p,3).
Heidegger endorsed the hermeneutic circle, where understanding and interpretation of phenomenon was gained through shared knowledge and shared experiences (Drew, 1998).
Heidegger’s perspective is on the participants' interpretations, not their descriptions of experiences.
Heidegger’s interpretive philosophy purports that humans are embedded in their world and the researcher cannot and should not negate their prior understanding and engagement in the subject under study.
Since the researcher did not bracket their biases, there was no need to return to the participants to ask if they confirmed the findings of the research, because Heidegger’s philosophy asserted that the depth of involvement of researchers would confirm credibility (p.3).
Husserl’s phenomenological philosophy supports impartiality, where preconceived notions, bias or judgments are set aside, or bracketed.
Researchers set aside their prior experiences so they would not instill any bias during the research.
Choice of an appropriate phenomenological research method that is congruent with the underlying philosophical tenets of either Husserl’s
descriptive or Heidegger’s interpretive phenomenology is vital to the credibility of the proposed research. Are you, the researcher, asking for
description or interpretation? Do you believe that your preconceived notions should be kept at abeyance or allowed to embrace the depth and breadth of the analysis of the subject under study?
Does your choice of an analysis methodology represent the underlying philosophy of Husserl or Heidegger?
The approach may have consequences for the quality of future research (p,3).
REFS:
Lopez KA, Willis DG (2004) Descriptive versus interpretive phenomenology: their contributions to nursing knowledge. Qual Health Res 14: 726-735.
Drew N (1998) A return to Husserl and researcher self-awareness. In Polifroni EC, Welch W (Eds) Perspectives on Philosophy of Science in Nursing: An Historical and Contemporary Anthology. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia
(Van Manen, 2017)
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Phenomenology is not to be confused with case studies, ethnographies, narrative inquiries, or empirical studies that aim to generalize their findings to a certain group or population.
There exist many methodological programs and paths that are branded as “interpretive, descriptive, or hermeneutic phenomenology.
Husserl’s (2014) aim for phenomenology was to capture experience in its primordial origin or essence, without interpreting, explaining, or theorizing.
And Martin Heidegger’s (1962) famous definition of phenomenology was “to let that which shows itself be seen from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself” (p. 58).
More recently, a leading phenomenologist Jean-Luc Marion (2002) stresses again that phenomenology is the study of how things show or give themselves. He points out that things do not show themselves because we turn to them—When things show themselves, they can only do so because they have already given themselves to us. In other words, Marion warns against constructivist approaches to phenomenology where meaning is (pre-)determined, constructed, or attributed to a phenomenon or event by the subject.
I deliberately formulated the questions in a phenomenologically generic form: “What is this lived experience like?” “What is it like to experience this phenomenon or event?” Or, “How do we understand or become aware of the primal meaning(s) of this experience?”
Phenomenology is the study of the primal, lived, prereflective, pre predicative meaning of an experience.
When Smith describes the participants of his research in the mid-nineties as “co-analysts,” he remains very much a therapy-oriented psychologist who requests that his clients describe and interpret their experiences. The client is asked to recount experiences that mattered to them and next they are asked to interpret these experiences.
Subsequently, it becomes the professional task of the psychologists to interpret the clients’ interpretations.
Smith (YEAR) says they begin to reflect on the significance of what is happening and IPA research aims to engage with these reflections. So an IPA researcher might be interested in looking in detail at how someone makes sense of a major transition in their life—for example, starting work, having a first child, losing a parent. (p. 3)
According to Smith (2011), “IPA wants to learn about the participant’s cognitive and affective reactions to what is happening to them . . . and how they are making sense of their experience” (p. 10).
REFS:
Husserl E. (2014). Ideas for a pure phenomenology and phenomenological philosophy. First book: General introduction to pure phenomenology. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing.
Heidegger M. (1962). Being and time. New York: Harper & Row.
Smith J. A., Flowers P., Larkin M. (2009). Interpretative phenomenological analysis: Theory, method and research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
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(Horrigan-Kelly, Millar and Dowling (2016)
Understanding the Key Tenets of Heidegger’s Philosophy for Interpretive Phenomenological Research
Marcella Horrigan-Kelly marcella.kelly@nuigalway.ie, Michelle Millar, and Maura DowlingView all authors and affiliations
Heidegger challenged existing Husserlian phenomenological ideals, arguing that it was predominantly descriptive, espousing the essential structures of consciousness. Heidegger thus advocated the ideals of his own phenomenology as one of interpretation of experience and explication of “the meaning of being”
Heidegger rejected the notion of the human being/subject as a spectator of objects espousing that both subject and object were inseparable. For Heidegger, “being” was thus the descriptions or accounts that “Dasein” (being there or man’s existence) provided of their everydayness or ordinary existence (Heidegger, 1927/2011, p. 38).
Heidegger put forth a broad array of key tenets within his phenomenological philosophy. These tenets include the concept of being, being in the world, encounters with entities in the world, being with, temporality, spatiality, and the care structure. The discussion presented here focuses on his conception of Dasein.
Heidegger introduced the concept of Dasein reflecting the notion of a “living being” through their activity of “being there” and being in the world (Cerbone, 2009; Heidegger, 1927/2011). Dasein’s central activity is their inquiry into being and in particular their ability to question and focus on personal existence (Heidegger, 1927/2011). Thus, Heidegger put forth the thesis that “understanding of Being is itself a definitive characteristic of Dasein’s Being” presenting Dasein as “ontically distinctive in that it is ontological” (Heidegger, 1927/2011, p. 32).
In making this ontological distinction, Heidegger depicts Dasein as an entity that has an understanding of their own Being and possibilities. Thus, Heidegger advocated laying “bare a fundamental structure of Dasein” as being in the world by exploring “average everydayness” (Heidegger, 1927/2011, p. 65).
In exploring the entity that is “the who” in the world, Heidegger explored “the self” with regard to average everyday existence through interaction with others. Thus, Heidegger contended that to continue the analytic of Dasein one must explore being in the world in the context of “being with others” (Heidegger, 1927/2011).
Within this everyday existence Heidegger put forth the structure of “being with,” that is, Dasein’s existence is not one of “being alone” but of “with world,” that is, being with others (Heidegger, 1927/2011, p. 152).
Ontological - the presence of being.
#Reflexivity#
IPA researchers stress the central role of Heidegger’s view of interpretation and his argument against a presuppositionless approach to phenomenology (Smith et al., 2009). With IPA, the researcher “brings their fore-conception (prior experiences, assumptions, preconceptions) to the encounter, and cannot help but look at any new stimulus in the light of their own prior experience” (Smith et al., 2009, p. 25). Smith, Flowers, and Larkin (2009) further clarify that the “fore-structure is always there, and it is in danger of presenting an obstacle to interpretation. In interpretation, priority should be given to the new object, rather than one’s preconceptions” (p. 25). However, it is also important to highlight that the researcher’s understanding of the phenomenon being studied is based on their “having particular ‘fore-conceptions’” (Finlay, 2008, p. 27).
Reflexivity therefore plays a central role in the researcher’s attempts to keep a check on their preconceptions. “The challenge for the researcher is to remain focused on the phenomenon being studied while both reining in and reflexively interrogating their own understandings” (Finlay, 2008, p. 29). This involves the researcher bringing to the fore their understanding of their position in terms of personal values, beliefs, motivations, culture, ethnicity, and so on (Clancy, 2013).
On a practical level, reflexivity should begin at the outset by teasing out influences that prompted the research question in the first place.
Echoing Heidegger’s views that human beings exist in their world on an instinctive everyday ordinary familiar level, the study aimed to expose the meaning of this everyday existence (Heidegger, 1927/2011).
This aim was grounded in one of Heidegger’s key goals of phenomenology, that is, to reveal or uncover everyday ordinary existence as he argued, it is here that meaning of this existence resides (Heidegger, 1927/2011).
Heidegger’s ideal of the hermeneutical circle or indeed spiral of interpretation.
One of the key goals within Heidegger’s philosophy is exposing the meaning of everyday ordinary human existence (Heidegger, 1927/2011). Heidegger’s philosophical analysis focused on the human being’s existence in their world as an individual and within their social context.
This exposition of everyday ordinary existence provides the interpretive phenomenological researcher with the opportunity to inductively reveal meaning from the emic perspective. This is arguably interpretive phenomenology’s greatest asset in that the opportunity to illuminate the “…ordinary, taken for granted living as something more layered, more nuanced, more unexpected and as potentially transformative when something is revealed of the extra-ordinary” (Friesen et al., 2012, p. 33). However, to do this, attention must be paid to Heidegger’s view of interpretation and his argument against a presuppositionless approach to phenomenology. From this standpoint, the role of reflexivity throughout the researcher’s endeavour remains to the fore in an attempt to interpret the meaning of the phenomenon being explored.
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Objectives of the research: describe the key features of digital accessibility awareness pedagogy from those teaching the topic for the first time.
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