Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Flashcards
What is this?
A form of thematic analysis which makes a number of assumptions - believes that interviews are for the study of experience
What does phenomenology mean?
The study of experience
What does experience mean?
People’s life worlds - the state of affairs in which the world is lived and experienced, the subjective (not behaviour) - what matters to participants
What are the assumptions?
- People interpret the world of phenomena / things - what we study, is their interpretations of the world
- Researchers interpret the world too, when we study others sense making, we bring our own in. Researchers therefore interpret people’s interpretations - reflexivity is foregrounded
What is foregrounded in IPA?
Reflexivity - self-awareness in our activity as researchers -
Why are you interested in ideographic?
Looking at a particular case - not general statical tendencies in the population
Why are you interested in meanings?
Interested in what things mean to people - not claims about causal relationships
Why are you interested in quality?
Interested in the types of experiences - not amounts of strength
What method does it favour?
Data-gathering approach - semi-structured interviews or diarises but not newspaper interviews - these reflects lots of views
Why does it favour interviews?
Wants to capture participants own words, categories and concerns - the flexibility to explore and probe responses
What does TA favour?
Other things like newspaper articles etc
What is the sample size for an IPA interview study?
6-8 standard
4-5 acceptable
1 is allowable
Is sample type or size important?
Sample type is more important - homogenous rather than representative, don’t want to make generalisations
more data you get - might get swamped, or tempted to summarise and lose the quality
What happens having carried out the interview?
IPA always begins with detailed reading and analysis of a single case, then move on…
TA - look at themes over all transcripts, IPA is a single case
How do you transcribe the interview?
Use wide margins - get to know it
Stages of analysis
- Read through transcript 1 - several times - know your data
- Identify key words or therapies (same as coding in TA) Put them in margin
- Identify themes - key words may be indicative of themes, put themes in margin
- Clustering of themes - a cluster is a superordinate theme - establish connections (e.g. psychological states). Not all themes may fit, when you move on to other cases, some can be dropped
- Integration of cases - use the themes you have from first interview as hypotheses for the organisation of rest
What are key words?
The words that seem important as reflections of the speaker’s experience
You have to make a judgement about this (remember the two assumptions about knowledge)
How can you be confident in your interpretations?
The validity of your analytic claims is a matter of plausibility - what is most convincing
How can you check the plausibility of your interpretations?
Iterative reading - stick to the data, go back, keep reading, ‘test’ it as you go back and forth from transcript to margin
Ask yourself:
does this theme reflect an important aspect?
are these instances similar - do hey make up a theme? then merge?
is this theme really different from the other?
How can you ensure validation in the write up?
Present illustrative quotes for each themes - then people can judge for themselves whether your reading is plausible
What is the criteria for good work in IPA?
Involves skilled interviewing
Well evidenced: supporting claims made with sufficient extracts from the participants’ accounts
The write-up should present a detailed interpretative commentary or narrative on participants’ experience, pointing to elements of both convergence and divergence
What are the strengths?
Good for giving speakers ‘voice’ – own concepts
High in validity/authenticity (rather than reliability – getting same answer twice) – what people really think/feel
In-depth (vs surface) investigation – probe
It’s idiographic; but generalizations might come later (with enough subsequent or follow-up studies) - e.g. can come up with hypothesises
Good for research on self and identity (or anything else experientially important!)
What are the weaknesses?
Assumes that language is essentially an unproblematic tool for access into cognitions - language doesn’t represent what is going on in cognitions
How the world is experienced is not necessarily what the world is really like (so what do people actually do?)
When would you use TA vs IPA?
TA - analysing social media etc
IPA - interviewing a group about experiences
What has more assumptions?
IPA - people interpret the world, themes should capture experience etc
Makes recomendations on sample size
