Lecture 8

Question 1

Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA)

Answer 1

• Comes with own specific set of assumptions compared to thematic analysis which you create
• Small samples
• Creates thick data
• Interviews normally long

Question 2

IPA as a specific approach

Answer 2

-Experience is close rather than per se = how they came to understand experience and what it meant to them

Question 3

3 elements of IPA

Answer 3

• Takes a critical realist approach
• Idea there is a reality but can only know it in part
• Phenomenology:
• -> detailed examination of individuals lived experience
• Symbolic interactionism:
• Symbolic symbols help communication
• Idea that the mind and self emerge from social interactions and the meanings that symbols help
• Hermeneutics:
• -> Analysis/interpretation of experiences
• -> double hermeneutic:
• First round = ppts have to interpret their experience
• Second round = researchers have to understand and then interpret their interpretation

Question 4

Idiographic approach taken by IPA

Answer 4

• Focus on individual
• Looks at how phenomena has been understood by particular people and contexts
• Doesnt mean just one person = done on case by case basis

Question 5

Basic principles of IPA

Answer 5

• Open ended questions
• Inductive
• Idiotgraphic
• Assumes agency of individual = individual actively talking about their experience
• Dynamic interpretive endeavour = research involves in process of sense making

Question 6

Using TA and IPA on one data set experiment (Spiers and Riley, 2019)

Answer 6

• Interviewed 47 GPs about depression, anxiety, stress and burnout
• TA applied to whole set and IPA on subsample
• TA provided breadth and broader insights into issues facing GPs
• IPA provided depth, exploring some of lived experience by GPS

Question 7

Limitations of IPA

Answer 7

• Over-reliance on language
• Only works for ppts that can articulate experience
• Not always sufficiently interpretative

Question 8

What are discourses?

Answer 8

• Ways of understanding particular ways of speaking
• Inter-related sets of texts that bring object into being
• DA use systematic study of text to assert the constructed effects of discourse
• Texts only meaningful when connected to other texts
• To understand meaning have to know context

Question 9

Discourse analysis

Answer 9

• Involves strong, social constructionist view of the world
• Reflectivity is central
• Analyst first focus is on language and what it does in the world
• They must go beyond the data –> use theory to interpret
• Linguistic approach to talking that aims to see how the speakers choice of words construct the social object

Question 10

2 principles of discourse analysis

Answer 10

Language does things:

• People use language and it re-creates knowledge and understanding
• Purposeful and helps structure lives
• Usually promotes one person or populations interest

People use discursive practices:

• way in which a discourse is acted on and circulated within a culture
• People use discursive practices because we are actively involved in reproducing DP

Question 11

Linguistic features

Answer 11

• Focus on systematic, grammatical and pragmatic features of material
• Powerful discursive practice in political argument was to change verbs into nouns e.g. politicians dont say we are going to privatise the railways, they say there will be a privatisation of the rail ways
• Choice of grammatical form is a discursive practice which promotes interests of certain groups in society

Question 12

Repertoires

Answer 12

• Usually arise at ideological dilemmas
• Used to construct alternative versions of events
• Analytic focus on variability across contexts
• Different linguistic repertoire in way scientists express themselves about the world:

Empiricist repertoire:
-In public texts vocab paints picture about empirically, knowable real world

Contingent repertoire:

• Done in private
• Scientists words described shifting world where facts were humanly constructed
• Was used when things went wrong

Question 13

Other approaches to analysis

Answer 13

Discursive psychology:

• How people use discursive resources in order to achieve their objectives in social interaction
• More naturalistic than discourse analysis

Foucauldian discourse analysis:
-Looks at what kinds of object is constructed and its implication to subjectivity, self hood and power relations

Question 14

Limitation if discourse analysis

Answer 14

• Embedded in social constructionism so inflexible to other approaches
• Heavily reflexive