Lecture 2

Question 1

where does IPA fit in?

Answer 1

qualitative design

• thematic analysis
• theory free method
• manifest/latent analysis

Question 2

what is IPA

Answer 2

interpretative

iterative

Question 3

ontology

Answer 3

• concerned with nature of being (reality - what things exist)

Question 4

epistemology

Answer 4

• concerned with what constitutes knowledge + methods to measure knowledge

Question 5

ontology and epistemology

Answer 5

• both influence questions we ask + methods we use to answer each questions
  each methodology will have different epistemological underpinning

Question 6

IPA epistemology

Answer 6

• hermeneutic phenomenological epistemology
  immersed in world as individuals (linguistics, historical, physical world)
  do not access experience directly - engage in process of interpretation
• reflexivity important - understand what we bring to the data and make these clear - help us ground our intepretations in the data

Question 7

key characteristics of IPA

Answer 7

explores a persons ‘life world’ via their ‘meaning making’
3 I’s:
- idiographic: starting with detailed examination of one case until gestalt
- inductive: technique which are flexible enough to allow unanticipated topics/themes to emerge
- interrogative - key aim: make contribution to society through interrogating or illuminating existing research

Question 8

what is IPA

Answer 8

understand experience of a phenomenon from particular perspective within particular context

• concerned with lived experience (life world)
• concerned with meaning making
• tried to bring to light the taken for granted aspects of life
• interpretative process

Question 9

3 phenomenological strands

Answer 9

• phenomenology
• hermeneutics
• ideography

Question 10

what do we mean about lived experience?

Answer 10

• IPA is interested in capturing how people understand their life world
• explore meaning-making, how people make sense of their experiences
• when looking at experience we look to capture, cognitions, perspectives, beliefs, emotions and bodily feelings
  recognition of the role/importance of context (historical, cultural, personal, social)

Question 11

research suited to IPA

Answer 11

• novel or understudied phenomena
• important for when interested in exploring a personal account of given experience within a given context
• bringing light to accounts of marginalised groups/under researched areas
• brings out rich understanding of phenomena - opening new research avenues

Question 12

phenomenology

Answer 12

• Husserl
• development to capture the structure which makes up experience
• method of studying experience or life world
• capture essence of experience as it appears in conscence
• create objective means to study subjective experiences by suspending own prejudgement

Question 13

phenomenological enquiry

Answer 13

• essence: essential features of phenomena
• phenomenological attitude: more age from objects in the world to our perception of these objects
• reflect: reflective of our experience, reflect on our seeing, thinking
• bracketing: putting aside taken for granted world in order to focus on our perceptions of the world
• free imaginative variation: imagining different instances

Question 14

Heidegger

Answer 14

• brought interpretative stance to phenomenology - grounded in life world
• emphasis on our interaction with the world
• interpretation of respondents meaning-making key feature of phenomenological enquiry

Question 15

Mearleau-Ponty

Answer 15

• embodiment
• body is central to experience - fundamental part of knowing our world
  when we encounter the world we experience a physical perception by previous thinking

Question 16

Hermeneutics

Answer 16

• methodology of interpretation
  access to experience/meaning made available through interpretation
• interpretation founded on pre-conceptions
• researcher can bring added meaning to participants account by engaging with physiological theory
  KEY: fusion of understanding
• meaning making is interactive - both bring something to process of interpretation

Question 17

what hermeneutics looks like in IPA

Answer 17

Ricoeur, 1970
- hermeneutics of questioning/suspicion
challenging the text, asking questions, drawing on external perspectives - not challenging truthfulness of text
external perspective - not challenging truthfulness of text
- hermeneutics of empathy
accepting of text, focusing on perspectives of participant, describing account, important in the interview process

Question 18

Idiograph

Answer 18

concern with the particular

1. in context of analysis - depth.detail
2. concerned with understanding a phenomena from the perspective of particular set of people in particular context (smith et al., 2009)

Question 19

good data

Answer 19

• detailed and reflective
• involves eliciting content relating to individuals feelings, thoughts and their embodied experience
• involves first person accounts of their life world
• obtained through good interview technique

Question 20

bad data

Answer 20

• data about other people
• data which involves descriptive accounts of things and events
• data with bias