Interpretative Phenomenological Approach - Research Paper Example

The changes in knowledge, attitudes and behaviours are crucial goals for phenomenological education and so are appropriate criteria for programme evaluation. Indeed, researchers have gone on to conduct several large-scale studies in to measure perception of young people using similar research methods. They conducted a similar piece of research, i.e. pre- and post-outdoor experience. This differed from that of qualitative approach, with data generated through exploratory interview and data were analysed using an interpretative phenomenological approach. They found that interactive environmental activities in an outdoor programme had a significant impact on attitudes and that passive instruction had little impact on retention of knowledge. A scale of this type consists of a series of bipolar adjective pairs (e.g. good-bad, beneficial-harmful) listed on opposite sides of a page, with seven spaces in between. The attitude object is identified at the top of the scale and may be a word, statement or picture. The respondent is instructed to evaluate the attitude object by placing a mark in one of the seven spaces between each adjective pair. Development of semantic differential scales stems from the use of theory of reasoned action to investigate science-related attitudes. This is particularly important in the field of Psychology education where behaviour is a clear objective. In their theory, suggest that attitude measures should focus on a person's attitude toward behaviour rather than on the person's attitude toward particular objects. That is, instead of asking about students' attitudes towards the r researchers should assess their attitudes toward learning about the experience. This method is called the Interpretative Phenomenological Method, which is the approach used in this study in analysing the experience of Zoe, a teenager who has been adopted by a family. Introduction Interpretative Phenomenological Approach is a method which is considered as consonant with the picture presented above is introduced. Interpretative phenomenological analysis is a method which attempts to tap into a natural propensity for self-reflection on the part of participants (Abraham and Sheeran, 2001). Obviously the degree to which individuals are used to expressing such reflections, orally or in writing, can vary and some people need more encouraging and facilitating than others. But a central premise of the method is allowing participants to tell their own story, in their own words, about the topic under investigation. However, research is not a simple, singular process and the original account from the participant in the form of an interview transcript or diary entry, for example, then needs to be analysed closely by the investigator. Interpretative phenomenological analysis is about attempting to discover meanings, not eliciting facts, but trying to find out what a person's health condition means to them requires considerable interpretative work on the part of the researcher (Abramson et al., 2003). The resultant analytic account can therefore be said to be the joint product of the reflection by both participant and researcher. This study will provide a brief theoretical contextualisation for interpretative phenomenological analysis and then argues for the particular relevance it has for health psychology. It is worth pointing out that this approach aims to have a dialogue with, and to help enlarge, the discipline of psychology not to attack or stand outside it. As will become apparent, interpretative phenomenological analysis can make a valuable contribution in enriching the way mainstream psychology conceives of the individual's experience of adoption. Method The interpretative phenomenological analysis applied to the social psychology as an application to the study on the experience of the subject Zoe as an adopted in a family. The first example is from a study examining how Zoe feels of him being adopted. The project involves analysis of long semi-structured interviews with Zoe. Because the study is based on a case-study design, looking at each patient in their own terms, an example from a single case is provided here. A particular theme, 'the importance of control', emerges from this case analysis and is in turn related to existing work on this construct. The aim of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is to explore the participant's view of the world and to adopt, as far as is possible, an 'insider's perspective' (Anderson and Bury, 2000) of the topic under investigation. Thus, the approach is phenomenological in that it is concerned with an individual's personal perception or account of an object or event as opposed to an attempt to produce an objective statement of the object or event itself. At the same time, IPA also recognises that the research exercise is a dynamic process. While one attempts to get close to the participant's personal world, one cannot do this directly or completely. Access is both dependant on, and complicated by, the researcher's own conceptions which are required in order to make sense of that other personal world through a process of interpretative activity. Hence the term interpretative phenomenological analysis is used to signal these dual facets of the approach (Buunck et al, 1990). While interpretative phenomenological analysis and related qualitative approaches have only recently begun to establish a higher profile in psychology, they connect to a long intellectual history in the social sciences more generally. One important theoretical touchstone for this form of qualitative methodology phenomenology has already been discussed above. It has a long pedigree in the social sciences and originated with Husserl's attempts to construct a philosophical science of perception at the turn of the century. A second important theoretical influence on this type of qualitative methodology is symbolic interactionism. Symbolic interactionism emerged in the USA in the 1930s, influenced both by phenomenology and more immediately by the pragmatism of, for example, Dewey, and represented an explicit rejection of the positivist paradigm beginning to take hold in the social sciences. Symbolic interactionism argues that the meanings individuals ascribe to events should be of central concern to the social scientist, and also that those meanings are only obtained through a process of interpretation. It also considers that meanings occur in, and as a result of, social interactions. Results It is important to distinguish IPA from discourse analysis (Christensen et al, 1991) which has developed a strong position in social psychology, particularly in the case of Zoe. While IPA shares with discourse analysis (DA) a commitment to the importance of language and qualitative analysis, where IPA researchers would typically differ from discourse analysts is in their perception of the status of cognition. DA is generally sceptical of the possibility of mapping verbal reports on to underlying cognitions and is concerned with attempting to elucidate the interactive tasks being performed by verbal statements. Thus, DA regards verbal reports as behaviours in their own right which should be the focus of functional analyses. IPA by contrast is concerned with cognitions, that is, with understanding what the particular respondent thinks or believes about the topic under discussion. Thus, while recognising that Zoe's thoughts are not transparently available from, for example, interview transcripts, IPA engages in the analytic process with the hope of being able to say something about that thinking. Finally, like to reflect on some issues that arise when using IPA. First, it is important to recognise that doing this type of research is personally demanding in a number of ways: talking with an adopted child, of course, be distressing; good interviewing requires particular skills which take time to develop; qualitative analysis is slow and painstaking and one does not know until late in the project exactly what is going to be produced. Doing IPA requires being comfortable with the particular personal demands which follow from the approach. Discussion An interesting connection to the issue of personal involvement concerns the relationship which is established between researcher and participant. It is often argued that this type of research method is more democratic and participant centred than many others. Thus, while the interview takes the form of a conversation, it is usually a pretty one-sided conversation. Good practice in phenomenological interviewing is generally considered to involve minimal intervention on the part of the interviewer, in order to allow the respondent to tell their own story (Buunck et al, 1990). However, doing this type of work can sometimes leave one with something of a feeling of intruding. One has learnt a great deal about the other person; they have disclosed often intimate details about themselves, but this has not been reciprocated by the researcher. This is perhaps an inevitable consequence of conducting research as conventionally defined, however non-conventional one's particular methodology might be. However, an awareness of these issues is important and one should at all times be attentive to showing respect to one's respondents and helping to maintain their dignity. It is great to consider good practice to encourage the participant to ask whatever questions they may have at the end of the interview and, if necessary, be prepared to talk about oneself more openly at this point, once the main body of the interview has been completed. To quote from the interview: I was 16 at this point, and had just started a Media Studies course at college. This was difficult period, perhaps because of the nature of adolescence itself. A year later I moved out of he family home and into the city of Carlisle to gain a little perspective and independence. I still go home occasionally when I have the funds, leaving enough time between each stay for the family to miss me! There are, of course, also various strategies which can be adopted with the aim of including the participant more closely in the research project. Preliminary analyses can be taken back to the participant and their responses to these can be included within the final write up. Buunck et al (1990) describes a form of dialogical analysis where the participant shares in the analytic endeavour. More radically still, co-operative inquiry researchers try to enlist participants as co-researchers who have an equal stake at every stage of the research project from inception to dissemination. One possible limitation of IPA is that the intensive involvement required means that the numbers of participants in such studies are almost always quite small, and this obviously raises questions about generalisability. However, the main aim of IPA is indeed to capture how particular individuals perceive and respond to their experiences and, therefore, the value of each case is highlighted. In this way, IPA has a different epistemological commitment to that of mainstream psychology where issues of reliability, sample size and so forth have particular status. And even single cases can make a contribution to the wider field, for example, in terms of problematising existing concepts or helping to develop ways of looking at new areas of study. With a set of cases, one can go even further and begin to develop case law or, through a process of analytic induction, begin to generate grounded theory (Anderson and Bury, 2000). What contribution can IPA research make above and beyond the particular findings generated by individual studies Bibliography Abraham, C. and Sheeran, P.,2001, 'In search of a psychology: beyond beliefs and texts', Health Education Research 8: 245-254. Abramson, L., Seligman, M. and Teasdale, J.,2003, 'Learned helplessness in humans: critique and reformulation', Journal of Abnormal Psychology 87: 49-74. Anderson, R. and Bury, M., 2000, Living with Adopted Family, London: Unwin Hyman. Buunck, B. P., Collins, R. L., Taylor, S. E., Van Yperen, N. and Dakof, G. A. ,1990, 'The affective consequences of social comparison: either direction has its ups and downs', Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 59: 1238-1249. Christensen, A., Turner, C., Smith, T., Holman, J. and Gregory, M., 1991, 'Interpretative Phenomenological Approach', Journal of Clinical and Consulting Psychology 59: 419-424. Read More