PHENOMENOLOGY A METHOD OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

1. PHENOMENOLOGYAMETHOD OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH Course: Educational Research Methods I (EDD – 1005) Instructor: Dr. Jan Hammond Student: Francis T. Harten

2. PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH Historical Perspective: • Phenomenology can be looked at as both a philosophy and a method of research. • Begun in the 20th-century as a philosophical movement by such noted philosophers as Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Jean Paul Sartre. • The philosophical movement they dedicated themselves to wished to describe how the structures of experience as they present themselves to consciousness, without relying upon any preconceived theory, assumption, reason of deduction, formulated hypothesis or foundationally based laws of the natural sciences. • To state more simply: The purpose of phenomenological research is to describe experiences as they are lived in phenomenological terms (i.e. to capture the “lived experience” of study participants) of a unique experience/phenomenon. • To phenomenologist want to answer the question “What is the meaning of one’s lived experience?”

3. Building an Understanding: • To begin Qualitative approaches to research are based on a real “world view” which is holistic (a view that an organic or integrated whole has a reality independent of and greater than the sum of its parts) and has the following beliefs: 1. There is not a single reality. 2. Reality based upon perceptions that are different for each person and change over time. 3. What we know has meaning only within a given situation or context. • The reasoning process used in qualitative research involves perceptually putting pieces together to make wholes. From this process meaning is produced. However, because perception varies with the individual, many different meanings are possible. (Burns & Grove (1993) The Practice of Nursing Research: Conduct, Critique & Utilization 2nd Edition). • A phenomenological approach to a qualitative research study wants to focus on describing the meaning for many individuals of their combined lived experience of a single aspect, concept, or simply phenomenon.

4. Phenomenologists focus on describing what all participants have in common as they experience a phenomenon. • The phenomenon can be almost any experience an individual or in the case of phenomenological research a group of individuals collectively experience in consciousness (i.e. such universal experiences as hopelessness, grief, social events, learned behaviors, mental health concerns, or psychological situations of mass stress episodes, etc.). • The basic purpose of phenomenology is to reduce individual experiences with a phenomenon to a description of the universal essence (a “grasp of the very nature of the thing,” van Manen, 1990, p. 177). • So in essence we as qualitative researchers wish to identify the collective phenomenon as the “object of the participating humans to the experience.

5. GESTALTS A Point of Core Interest in Phenomenology • The reasoning process of phenomenology we are beginning to outline can be understood by exploring the formation of gestalts. • Gestalt is a German word, which translates in to English as either figure or build when applied to a person, or shape or form when applied to objects (as in gestalt gewinnen which means "to take shape"). • The concept of gestalt is closely related to the holistic approach and proposes that knowledge about a particular phenomenon be organized into a cluster of linked ideas, a gestalt. • A theory is a form of gestalt. If we are trying to understand something new and are offered a theory that explains it our reaction may be "Now that makes sense’’ or "Oh, I see." • Whatever the new thing was that we were trying to understand has "gelled" for us. In other words we now have a conceptual understanding of what was or is being experienced by the participant group being studied and the phenomena they experienced.

6. One disadvantage of this process is that, once we understand a phenomenon through the interpretation of a particular theory it is difficult for us to see the phenomenon outside of the meaning given to it by the theory. • Thus in addition to giving meaning, a theory can actually limit the meaning of a phenomenon. • The purpose of qualitative research is to form new gestalts and sometimes to generate new theories. • To accomplish this, the researcher has to "get outside of" any existing theories or gestalts that explain the phenomenon of interest. The mind must be open to, new gestalts emerging through the abstract thinking process of the researcher during the personal experiences of the qualitative research process.

7. PHILOSOPHICAL ORIENTATION OF PHENOMENOLOGY • There have been several persons who have built upon Edmund Husserls view of phenomena research methodology. The areas of use have become prevalent in the social and health sciences, sociology, psychology, nursing and education. • As with any subject matter being look at by different individuals with varying degrees of interpretation there is bound to be issues and concerns among their fine-tuned definitions and perspectives of phenomenological approach methods. • The following areas of interest represent some common grounds of agreement in their philosophical assumptions: 1. Study of lived experiences of persons. 2. View that these experiences are conscious ones. 3. Development of descriptions of the essences of these experiences, not explanations or analyses.

8. Phenomenologists view the person as integral with the environment. The focus of phenomenological research is people's experience in regard to a phenomenon and how they interpret their experiences. • All phenomenologists agree that there is not a single reality; each individual has his or her own reality. • This is considered true even of the researcher’s experience in collecting data and analyzing it. " Truth is an interpretation of some phenomenon; the more shared that interpretation is the more factual it seems to be, yet it remains temporal and cultural" (Munhall 1989). • There are four aspects of the human experience, which are of interest to the phenomenological researcher: Lived space (spatiality), Lived body (corporeality), Lived human relationships (relationality), Lived time (temporality). • All of these aspects are taken into consideration we must be aware that people see different realities in different situations, in the company of different people and at different times. I am sure that everyone can recognize a "Monday morning" feeling and would be aware that the feelings expressed about one's life in an interview given at this time may be very different to those given at another time.

9. Process of a Phenomenological Research Study: • Identify the phenomenon (experience) to explore. • Researcher must develop research questions that are particular to the phenomenon at the focus of investigation: Factors to consider in development of research questions A. What are the necessary constituents of this feeling or experience? B. What does the existence of this feeling or experience indicate concerning the nature of the human being? • The initial inquire by the researcher to the participant group. The researcher seeks individuals willing to describe their experience(s) with the phenomenon in question. • The individual participants need to understand and voluntarily express their inner most feelings and describe any physiological or psychological experiences that occur with the feelings.

10. Collection of data from participants who have experienced the phenomenon. This is accomplished by observations, interactive interviews, videotapes and written descriptions by the subject participants. • Development and composite description of the essence of the experience by all of the individual participants (“what” they experienced & “how” they experienced the phenomenon). • In most instances data is collected through in-depth interactive conversations between the researcher and the participant. It is at this very starting point of data collection that the Analysis begins. This analysis will help guide the decision making process of the researcher as it relate to all further data collected. • From the analyzed data collected the researcher attaches meaning to the data collected and is expressed in terms of phenomenological philosophy.

11. The outcome of the analysis is a theoretical statement responding to the original research question. • The statement is validated by examples of the data which are often direct quotes from the individual participants. • From all of this it is hoped that the common experiences of the participants through the structural and textural descriptions and the inevitable composite description of the researcher will present the core of the phenomenon or the Essential, Invariant Structure or Essence. • From all that has occurred and what the researcher now presents as the Essence of the combines mass experience; the reader should be able to say to themselves “Yes, I can see that”, “I understand now”, “Oh I see” or “That really makes sense”. The reader has his experienced his point of new understanding through the gain of new knowledge and learning. The reader has experienced his GESTALT MOMENT!

12. REFERENCES