Addis Ababa University
School Of Graduate Studies
College of Education and Behavioral Studies
Department of Special Needs Education
Qualitative Research Methods in Education (SNED 816)
Assignment 1: PHENOMENOLOGY RESEARCH APPROACH
By: Ermias Kibreab (GSR/5545/11)
Dec 2018
Contents of presentation
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Introduction
The why of Phenomenology
Types of Phenomenological studies
Scope of phenomenological study
Sampling in Phenomenology
Instruments in Phenomenology
Data collection and Display
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Content…
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Data analysis
Discussion and Conclusion
Reporting style
Ethical Issues
Limitations of Phenomenological studies
Similarities and Differences with the other
Approaches
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Introduction to phenomenology
• The founding father of this approach was
Philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859-1938);
Philosophical Phenomenology .
• It has a philosophical root of discipline
• This approach has served in fields of psychology
and social sciences, quite for long time. Also
practiced in health sciences, Sociology, nursing…
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Introduction…
• a philosophic system rooted in ‘subjective
openness’, seeking to acquire knowledge
through direct sensory experience of objects
as they present themselves to our
consciousness through the reflective powers
of the self.
• That which appears (the phenomenon, from
the Greek phainomai = to appear) is the
impetus for experience and for generating
knowledge (Moustakas 1994).
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Introduction…
• There is no single route to phenomenology
• Austrian Sociologist Alfred Schutz (1899-1957)
developed the Husserlian Phenomenology to
Sociological Phenomenology
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Introduction…
• People perception about an object and
constructing them as such is the basic idea
behind phenomenology.
• ‘World of Lived Experience’
• Husserl: things are always perceived as having
other sides to be seen or touched/
experienced than those actually seen
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Introduction…
• Main goal: to gather and present description of
lived experience of a phenomena in detail
(deeper understanding of the meaning of
everyday experience.)
• To search for meaning and essences rather than
explanations and measurements
• Concerned with description rather than
interpretations
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Introduction…
• According to Creswell (2007)
– ‘It describes the meaning for several individuals of
their lived experience of a concept or a phenomenon’
• It is concerned with describing what all
participants have in common.
• Identifying essence through reducing individual
experiences about a phenomenon
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Introduction…
• Phenomena include visible, touchable and audible
things in the world, as well as desires, attitudes,
feelings, perceptions, physical and emotional
expressions, felt senses, art, dreams (Van Maanen
1990, Betensky 1995).
• Sadness, pain, desire are experienced differently by
each and every one of us.
• Truth, therefore, is subjective, as meanings are cocreated by the person who experiences and his/her
environment and context.
• To a phenomenologist all knowledge is relational,
stemming from the engagement and interaction of
subjects as they experience their world.
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Introduction…
• Assumptions of Phenomenology
– Meaning and knowing are social constructions, which
are incomplete and developing
– The researcher’s role has value in the study and
he/she is part of the experience
– Bias is inherent
– There is a need to obtain first-person accounts in
formal or informal conversations. This is considered
as ‘evidence’ in phenomenology
– Social world is socially constructed
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• Philosophical Perspectives
– A return to the traditional tasks of philosophy
– A philosophy without presuppositions
– The intentionality of consciousness
– The refusal of the subject-object dichotomy
(the reality of an object related to the experience of an
individual)
Intertwined
‘In other words, perception of the reality of an object is
dependent on a subject’ (Moustakas 1994).
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1.1 The why of phenomenology?
• When there is a need to assess the effect of
some experience (phenomena) on a particular
group of people
• To accurately describe/portray an experience of
people under study, no generalization
• It will help to address the question: ‘What is the
structure and essence of experience of this
phenomenon for these people?’
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1.2 Types of Phenomenological Study
• According to Creswell, there are two approaches
to Phenomenology ;
– Hermeneutic phenomenology (Van Manen )
– Empirical, transcendental, or psychological
phenomenology (Moustakas)
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Types …
Hermeneutic phenomenology
• Van Manen (educator), promotes the idea of
interpreting the ‘text’ of life (hermeneutics)
towards lived experience (phenomenology)
• has not formulated rules or methods to conduct
this approach
• He indicated some research activities, which are
interrelated in conducting this research
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Types …
Hermeneutic phenomenology
• Activities
– Researchers first identify their area of interest,
phenomenon …’abiding concern’
– They reflect on essential themes, what constitutes
the nature of this lived experience
– Through maintaining strong relation to the topic of
investigation, they write a description of the
phenomenon
– The researcher makes interpretation of the lived
experiences
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Types …
Transcendental, Or Psychological
Phenomenology
• More focus on description of the experiences of
participants
• Unlike Hermeneutic phenomenology, it gives
little attention to interpretations of the
researcher
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Types …
• Focuses on idea of epoche (or bracketing)
which is the freedom from presuppositions /
prejudgment . It is putting your experience
aside to take fresh perspective of their
responses and the phenomenon
• Hence, transcendental’: ‘everything is
perceived freshly, as if for first time’
• Bracketing out early experiences
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Types …
• These models have certain common qualities
(Moustakas ):
• They recognize the value of qualitative designs
and methodologies. Studies of human
experiences are not approachable through
quantitative approaches.
• They focus on the wholeness of experience rather
than solely on its objects or parts
• They search for meanings and essences of
experience rather than measurements and
explanations
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Types …
• They obtain descriptions of experience through firstperson accounts in informal and formal conversations
and interviews
• They regard the data of experience as imperative in
understanding human behaviour and as evidence for
scientific investigations
• They formulate questions and problems that reflect
interest, involvement, and personal commitment of the
researcher
• The view experience and behaviour as an integrated
and inseparable relationship of subject and object and
of parts and whole
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1.3 Scope of Phenomenological Study
• Two basic and broad questions will be presented
to participants in phenomenology approach
– What have you experienced in terms of the
phenomenon? (textural description)
– What contexts or situations have typically influenced
or affected your experience of the phenomenon?
(structural description)
• Combining the two and convey overall essence of
the experience
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Scope…
• As indicated in Creswell (2007), Moustakas
applied the following procedures:
– Identifying a phenomenon to study
– Bracketing out one’s experiences
– Collecting data from those who have experienced the
phenomenon
– Analyze the data by reducing the information to
significant statements or quotes and combine the
statements to themes
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Scope…
– The researcher then develops textural
description and structural descriptions
– Combine the two and identify essence of
the experience
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1.4 Sampling in Phenomenology
• All individuals participating in the study need to
have experience of the phenomenon
• There is no fast and hard rule with regard to size
• Different authors recommend different sample
size (Creswell mentions recommendation of
other scholar; 5 to 25 individuals who have
experienced the phenomenon)
• Proceed with more size until no new theme
emerges
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Sampling…
• The emphasis being accurately portraying the
phenomenon, large number of participants
are not required
• To achieve the goal, use of purposeful
sampling is recommended by scholars
• Stratifying groups could be recommended in
some settings, rather taking convenient
samples
• Inclusion criteria
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1.5 Instruments in Phenomenology
• It needs to be decided depending the type of
data needed in understanding the phenomenon
• But in-depth interviews are most commonly used
to gather data
• Others include:
– Observations, drawings, photographs, Art, Poetry,
music
• We can even use questionnaires to get
background information of participants
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1.6 Data Collection and display
• Suspending past knowledge about the
phenomenon, bracketing
• Getting consent before data collection
• Informed consent
• Recording interviews
• Work as partners
• Inquire at greater depth
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1.7 Data Analysis
• Moustakas as cited in Creswell (2007) proposed
the following procedures:
– Going through the data (like transcriptions)
– Horizontalization: highlighting ‘significant
statements’, sentences, or quotes that help to
understand the experience of the participants about
the phenomenon
– Develop some meaning from the above statements ,
formulated meanings
– Developing themes by combining formulated
meanings, clusters
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Analysis…
• Other scholars steps:
– First the researcher immerses him/her self in to the
data (transcribed and recorded interviews)
– Establishing ‘Meaning Unit’ by coding texts using
words, phrases or sentences that help to describe the
phenomena or experience under study
– Putting similar meaning units together as categories
‘Transformed statements’
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Analysis…
– for each meaning unit the meaning of the
participants’ own words is spelled out.
– Combining the last two in to few thematic
statements that describe the experience
– Approaching some participants after analysis to
validate findings is also recommended
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1.8 Discussion and Conclusion
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Briefly present significant statements
Then formulated meanings
Then synthesize themes
Bring on personal quotes/ paraphrased cases
from the verbatim to explain respective themes
• Compare your findings with other similar reports
to support or otherwise your findings
• Summarize your findings, Limitations,
recommendations
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1.9 Reporting Style
• Report styles by different authors were not
found to be significantly different. They share
some common formats and contents.
• There is no strict format to follow
• Here is one:
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Reporting…
• Introduction (background and the phenomenon you
want to study)
• Literature Review
• Method
– Sampling
– Design (epoche, )
– Procedures (institutional clearance, consent, recording
interviews)
• Data Analysis
• Results
• Discussions
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Reporting…
• Creswell (2007) adapted the following procedure
from Moutakas:
– Introduction (problem, question)
– Research procedures (a phenomenology and
philosophical assumptions, data collection, analysis,
outcomes)
– Significant statements
– Meaning of statements
– Themes of meanings
– Exhaustive description of phenomenon
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1.10 Ethical Issues
• Institutional Approval
• Voluntary participation
• Informed consent to Research
– The purpose of a research, expected duration and
procedures
– The right to decline to participate and to withdraw
from the research once participation has begun
– Reasonably foreseeable factors that may be expected
to influence their willingness to participate such as
potential risks, discomfort or adverse effects
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Ethical…
– Any prospective research benefits
– Limits of confidentiality
– Guaranty of anonymity
– Informed consent for recording voices and Images in
research
• Reporting Research Result
• Plagiarism
– Don’t present portions of another’s work or data as
your own.
• Privacy and confidentiality of respondents, even
in writing
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1.11 Limitations of Phenomenological
Studies
• Like other qualitative approaches, it shares some
common limitations
• Bracketing personal experience in deeply
engaged study, which might be impossible
• Demanding role of the researcher ,
– it requires resilience to keep on inquiring and
questioning
– Lengthy process of transcribing interviews, reading,
re-reading them
– Conducting multiple interviews
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Limitations…
• Participants might flash-back to their prior
event which might be traumatic
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1.12 Similarities and Differences with
Other Approaches
• Similarities
– They employ qualitative research design and
methodologies
– Natural settings in research
– Researcher being key for success of research
– Emergent design
– Interpretive inquiry
– Multiple sources of data
– Inductive data analysis
– Highly flexible
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Similarities…
• They search for meanings and essences of
experience rather than measurements and
explanations –
• They obtain descriptions of experience through
first-person accounts in informal and formal
conversations and interviews –
• They regard the data of experience as imperative
in understanding human behaviour and as
evidence for scientific investigations –
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differences…
• Differences with regard to:
Focus
• Narrative: life of a single individual
• Phenomenology: description of the essence of
experience of a phenomenon (composite)
• Grounded theory: generating theory not ‘off the
shelf’ but rather grounded in data from
participants
• Ethnography: holistic view of how a culture
sharing group works
• Case study: in-depth description of case or cases
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differences…
Roots of discipline
• Narrative: emanated from anthropology,
literature, history, psychology and sociology
• Phenomenology: Philosophy, psychology, and
Education
• Grounded theory: Sociology
• Ethnography: Anthropology and Sociology
• Case study: Psychology, Law, political science,
medicine
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differences…
Unit of analysis
• Narrative: one or more individuals
• Phenomenology: several individuals with common
experience
• Grounded theory: studying a process, action or
interaction involving many individuals
• Ethnography: studying a groups that share common
culture
• Case study: studying an event, a program, an
activity, or an individual
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differences…
Data collection tools
• Narrative: Primarily interviews and documents
• Phenomenology: primarily interviews +
documents, observations
• Grounded theory: primarily interviews
• Ethnography: primarily observations and
interviews
• Case study: using multiple resources (interviews,
observations, documents, artifacts)
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differences…
Data analysis
• Narrative: analyzing data for stories, ‘restorying’
stories, developing theme using chronology
• Phenomenology: significant statements, meaning
units, textural and structural description, description
of essence
• Grounded theory: analyzing data through open
coding, axial coding, selective coding
• Ethnography: description of the culture-sharing
group; theme about the group
• Case study: description of case and themes
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differences…
Main Report Idea
• Narrative: Narrative of stories of an individual’s
life
• Phenomenology: describing the ‘essence’ of the
experience
• Grounded theory: generating theory
• Ethnography: describing how a culture-sharing
group works
• Case study: detailed and in-depth analysis of one
or more cases
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List of references
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Thank You for your Attention!!!
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