Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Question 1

What is this?

Answer 1

A form of thematic analysis which makes a number of assumptions - believes that interviews are for the study of experience

Question 2

What does phenomenology mean?

Answer 2

The study of experience

Question 3

What does experience mean?

Answer 3

People’s life worlds - the state of affairs in which the world is lived and experienced, the subjective (not behaviour) - what matters to participants

Question 4

What are the assumptions?

Answer 4

1. People interpret the world of phenomena / things - what we study, is their interpretations of the world
2. 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

Question 5

What is foregrounded in IPA?

Answer 5

Reflexivity - self-awareness in our activity as researchers -

Question 6

Why are you interested in ideographic?

Answer 6

Looking at a particular case - not general statical tendencies in the population

Question 7

Why are you interested in meanings?

Answer 7

Interested in what things mean to people - not claims about causal relationships

Question 8

Why are you interested in quality?

Answer 8

Interested in the types of experiences - not amounts of strength

Question 9

What method does it favour?

Answer 9

Data-gathering approach - semi-structured interviews or diarises but not newspaper interviews - these reflects lots of views

Question 10

Why does it favour interviews?

Answer 10

Wants to capture participants own words, categories and concerns - the flexibility to explore and probe responses

Question 11

What does TA favour?

Answer 11

Other things like newspaper articles etc

Question 12

What is the sample size for an IPA interview study?

Answer 12

6-8 standard
4-5 acceptable
1 is allowable

Question 13

Is sample type or size important?

Answer 13

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

Question 14

What happens having carried out the interview?

Answer 14

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

Question 15

How do you transcribe the interview?

Answer 15

Use wide margins - get to know it

Question 16

Stages of analysis

Answer 16

1. Read through transcript 1 - several times - know your data
2. Identify key words or therapies (same as coding in TA) Put them in margin
3. Identify themes - key words may be indicative of themes, put themes in margin
4. 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
5. Integration of cases - use the themes you have from first interview as hypotheses for the organisation of rest

Question 17

What are key words?

Answer 17

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)

Question 18

How can you be confident in your interpretations?

Answer 18

The validity of your analytic claims is a matter of plausibility - what is most convincing

Question 19

How can you check the plausibility of your interpretations?

Answer 19

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?

Question 20

How can you ensure validation in the write up?

Answer 20

Present illustrative quotes for each themes - then people can judge for themselves whether your reading is plausible

Question 21

What is the criteria for good work in IPA?

Answer 21

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

Question 22

What are the strengths?

Answer 22

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!)

Question 23

What are the weaknesses?

Answer 23

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?)

Question 24

When would you use TA vs IPA?

Answer 24

TA - analysing social media etc

IPA - interviewing a group about experiences

Question 25

What has more assumptions?

Answer 25

IPA - people interpret the world, themes should capture experience etc
Makes recomendations on sample size