Week 3- Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)

Question 1

What are the differences between Thematic Analysis, Grounded Theory and IPA?

Answer 1

TA:
* Theory free method
* Manifest/latent analysis

GT:
* Theory formation
* Constant comparison
-Grounded theory is the most philosophically embedded (TA less so i.e., less positivism) THEREFORE IPA is the middle ground between.

IPA:
* Interpretative
* Iterative

Question 2

Define Ontology

Answer 2

Ontology is concerned with the nature of being (reality- what things exist) e.g., do souls exist?

-What do we know (Ontology) and how do we know it? (Epistemology)

Question 3

Define Epistemology

Answer 3

Epistemology is concerned with what constitutes knowledge and the methods to
measure knowledge
e.g., how can we know whether souls exist?

Question 4

What is the influence Ontology & Epistemology have?

Answer 4

■ Both influence the questions we ask and the methods we as researcher use to answer these questions.

■ Each methodology will have a different
epistemological underpinnings.

Question 5

What is IPA Epistemology?

Answer 5

■ Hermeneutic (i.e., interpretation) phenomenological epistemology.

■ We are immersed in a linguistic, cultural, historical, physical world)

■ Idiographic approach to understanding (i.e., focuses on the individual)

■ Do not access experience directly- we engage in a process of interpretation (meaning making, double hermeneutic)

■ Reflexivity is important – understand what we bring to the data and make these clear.

■ ‘‘The end result is always an account of how the analyst thinks the participant is thinking’ (Smith et al, 2009, p.80).

-What is going on through a series of processes that we need to pay attention to (Hermeneutic)

-IPA sharing more of a philosophical space than it did beforehand

Question 6

What are the key characteristics of IPA?

Answer 6

IPA explores a persons ‘life world’ via their ‘meaning-making’

The 3 I’s:
1. Idiographic
2. Inductive
3. Interrogative

-How a person understands their experience from the world they’re living in (IPA)

-Might not be just one part of the analysis you do, you may do more parts revealing more about the content of the data (what iterative is)

Idiographic- starting with the detailed examination of one case until gestalt.

Inductive - techniques which are flexible enough to allow unanticipated topics /themes to emerge.

Interrogative - a key aim of IPA is to make a contribution to psychology through interrogating or illuminating existing research.

Question 7

What is IPA?

Answer 7

■ It aims to understand the experience of a phenomenon from a particular perspective within a particular context

■ Concerned with the lived experience- the participants life world

■ Concerned with the meaning making- how people make sense of a given experience

■ Tries to bring to light the taken for granted aspects of our life.

■ Interpretative process

-Hermeneutics is where interpretation becomes vital, idiographic is the opposite of nomothetic

-It is a qualitative methodology (how you’re analysing the data) NOT a method (a tool)

-Focuses on a characteristic that most people don’t experience in the world e.g., HIV (i.e., a homogenous group of shared experience/phenomenon)

Question 8

What 3 philosophical strands does IPA draw on?

Answer 8

1. Phenomenology
2. Hermeneutics
3. Idiography

Question 9

Who is Hursserl and what did he do?

Answer 9

■ Husserl developed the phenomenological method to capture the structure which make up the human experience.

■ A method of studying experience or what is often termed the participants life world.

■ Aims to capture the essence of the experience as it appears to our consciousness.

■ To create objective means to study subjective experiences by suspending own pre-judgments
(bracketing).

-More focused on objectivity than later thinkers.

-Realised that focusing on phenomena would be contested (so introduced bracketing)

-You take your preconceptions about the population, phenomena or the context in both and when you notice these preconceptions arising in your analysis, you remove it and acknowledge it (what bracketing is) to keep accountability of biases (gives a sense of objectivity to the data as you are actively removing any biases)

Question 10

How did Phenomenology go beyond Husserl?

Answer 10

Heidegger:
■ Our interaction with the world/ human beings are interpretative
■ Interpreting respondents meaning making is a key to
phenomenological enquiry.

Merleau-Ponty:
■ Embodiment
■ The body is central to human experience, it is a fundamental
part of our knowing the world
-Internalises some of the thought processes such as embodiment, and valued tuning to our bodies

Sartre:
■ The important role of ‘others’ in shaping our experiences (both
their presence/ lack of presence)
-Humans are naturally social human beings so perhaps looking at interactions and relationships with people is vital to understand

Question 11

What do we mean about lived
experience?

Answer 11

1. IPA is interested in capturing how people understand their life-
   world- so we explore meaning making, how people make sense of their experiences.
2. When we are looking at experience we look to capture cognitions, perspectives, beliefs,
   emotions and bodily feelings (embodiment).
3. Recognition of the role/importance of context-historical, cultural, personal, social etc., (How important was it for you as a person?)

Question 12

What is Hermeneutics?

Answer 12

• Methodology of Interpretation
• Access to experience/meaning made available through interpretation.
• Interpretation is founded on pre-conceptions, but we may only be aware of these only once interpretation has started.
• Bracketing is important, but we may not be able to achieve this fully (reflexivity)
• Researcher can bring added meaning to a participants account by engaging with psychological theory and through having access to a larger dataset.
• Key thing: fusion of understanding- meaning making is interactive- between the researcher and the researched.
• We must have an openness to the text and to the individuals account.

-You want homogenous group to be solid

-Reflexivity is not reflection, it is the constant churning of your feelings, bias and thoughts towards the data

Question 13

What 2 types does
hermeneutics looks like in
IPA?

Answer 13

Hermeneutics of questioning /suspicion (i.e., Philisophical skeptism):
* Challenging the text, asking questions of it, drawing on external perspectives – not challenging the truthfulness of the text (conceptual commentary)

Hermeneutics of empathy:
* We are accepting of the text, focusing on the perspectives of participant, describing the account, important in the interview process too (descriptive
commentary)

Question 14

What Research is suited to IPA?

Answer 14

 Novel or understudied phenomena.

 Important for when interested in exploring a personal account of a given experience within a given context.

 Bringing to light the accounts of marginalised groups/under researched areas.

 Brings out rich understanding of the phenomena-opening new research avenues.

-People use the smaller sample size e.g., 3 people to get it done quicker when in fact the analysis is much longer to do compared to TA and GT

 Clinical and health

Question 15

What are some research examples?

Answer 15

1. Clients’ experiences of one-to-
   one low-intensity interventions
   for common mental health
   problems: An interpretative
   phenomenological analysis.
2. Stigma and the delegitimation
   experience: An interpretative
   phenomenological analysis of
   people living with chronic
   fatigue syndrome.
3. Researching recovery from
   psychosis: a user-led project.

-You wouldn’t really use IPA for educational or psychometrically inclined studies

Question 16

What is sampling like in IPA?

Answer 16

 Homogenous

 Purposive

 Small samples (N = 5 -10 Smith,
(2004))

 Case studies

Question 17

What is classed as good data?

Answer 17

■ Is detailed (Not long for the sake of being long)

■ Involves eliciting content relating to the individuals feelings, thoughts and their embodied experience.

■ Involves first person accounts of their life-world (‘I’ etc.)

■ Is obtained through good interview technique

Question 18

What is classed as bad data?

Answer 18

■ Data which is about other people

■ Data which involves descriptive accounts of things and events

Question 19

What are examples of data in IPA?

Answer 19

■ Traditionally- words

■ Interviews- usually individual one-to-one, more than one individual you have to consider impact of group dynamics etc.,

■ Diary entries

■ Blogs

■ Creativity is encouraged, people use photographs, drawing etc. to elicit conversations

Question 20

How can you develop the interview schedule?

Answer 20

■ Developed from your understanding of the key features of the given experience (based on scoping research)

■ Can involve a range of stakeholders (clinicians, patients, researchers)

■ Interview schedule can be piloted: aim to capture the clarity of questions, flow of interview, rule out ambiguity, leading questions, prompts to be added.

■ Numbers of questions is based on the topic

Question 21

What is the structure of the interview schedule?

Answer 21

■ Semi structured interview
- Open questions
- Flexible protocol
- Pursue relevant/unexpected topics - use of prompts
- Participants agenda is prioritised- participant is the expert
- Employ hermeneutics of empathy

■ Recorded via Dictaphone

■ Ending interviews can be difficult if something personal was talked about – can be cathartic for the participant.

-Remember importance of embodiment, especially for health conditions

-People may answer a later question so you have to adjust (flexible)

Question 22

How do you transcribe the interview?

Answer 22

■ Transcribed in conversational style

■ Page is split into three, with the transcripts being placed in the middle, with initial codes to the right and emerging themes to the left. Work on electronic or printed version

■ Listen back to transcripts to ensure all material was captured correctly.

■ Analyse one transcript at a time!

Question 23

What are the 8 steps into the art of analysis? (Charlick et al., 2016)

Answer 23

1. Each interview read individually
   (multiple times)
2. Open coding , develop potential
   themes per person
3. Emergent themes organised
   into a preliminary structure
4. Assess possible interrelationships in emergent
   themes
5. As reaching gestalt condense
   themes per person
6. Compare case for convergence
   and divergence
7. Organise shared themes
8. Compare each case in an
   iterative manner until final
   superordinate themes are
   developed

Question 24

What are the 3 Coding Levels in IPA

Answer 24

1. Descriptive Coding
   * Focus on describing what the participant has said
   * Notes on important statements that make up the participant’s lifeworld
   -Trying to reduce it from a full transcript to a series of codes
2. Linguistic Coding
   * Focus on the meaning of the language used
   * The ways in which content and meaning have been presented & imparted
   * Consider pronoun use, repetition of words, use of similes & metaphors etc.,
   -It’s not just what’s in the data but how they’ve said the data
   -Transitioning to more conceptual codes (i.e., they’re becoming more questioning)
3. Conceptual Coding
   * Engaging at an interrogative and conceptual level
   * More interpretative – a move away from the explicit claims
   * Begins to capture the overarching understanding of the experience/topic
   * Often takes the form of questions (when starting out this can be helpful

-The coding steps can be done in parallel or in stages. For instance, work on a section of the transcript with descriptive comments, then linguistic, followed by conceptual.

-Create a template document you can use for transcribing your data. There isn’t a right or wrong way, but this is borrowed from how Smith, Flowers & Larkin (2005) set out their coding and theme development. It has worked for me. The columns either side mean you can code in-situ and make notes of themes as they develop.

-You could have emergent and exploratory comments on either side

-Parallel=coding all three at once

Question 25

Stage 3: How can we develop emergent themes? (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2005)

Answer 25

“In looking for emergent themes, the task of managing the data changes as the analyst simultaneously attempts to reduce the volume of detail (the transcript and initial notes) whilst maintaining complexity, in terms of
mapping the interrelationships, connections and patterns between
exploratory notes”

• Shift from working primarily with transcript to using initial notes.
• Themes aim to capture ‘essential quality’ of data
• When similar themes emerge, use same label
• Theme labels are grounded in participant’s narrative but may use psychological (or other) terminology
• Develop plausible and grounded themes from your codes

“Themes are usually expressed as phrases which speak to the psychological essence of the
piece and contain enough particularity to be grounded and enough abstraction to be
conceptual.”

■ Whilst initial notes may have felt ‘loose’ and ‘open’, themes are more of a reflection and
understanding of the data.

■ Turning these notes into themes involves producing a concise statement that captures what was important

-You start to use more of your initial notes you’ve made, labelling things directly made in the data

Question 26

3.1: How do we search for connections across emergent themes?

Answer 26

-The aim of this step is to draw together the emergent themes from one participant’s account and to produce a structure which illuminates the most important and interesting aspects.

-Map the existing themes (which until now have existed in chronological order) by considering how they fit together.

-Not all emergent themes need be included – some can be discarded. May depend on the research question.

-There are various ways this can be done (these are examples and not prescriptive):*

• Abstraction – Subsumption – Polarization – Contextualization – Numeration - Function -

-Once this process has finished make a graphic representation of the structure of the emergent themes (diagram, table, figure etc.)

Question 27

Stage 3.2: How do we move onto the next case?

Answer 27

■ You can write up a single case study, but usually you have multiple participants.

■ Move to the next participant’s account and repeat the whole process.

■ Remember ‘ideography’ – ensure you treat this case as unique.

■ Bracket the ideas and findings from the previous participant.

■ As much as possible, you are wanting new themes to emerge from each case.

Question 28

Stage 3.3: How do we look for patterns across cases?

Answer 28

■ Can help analyst to move to more theoretical level

■ Participants have unique,
idiosyncratic instances but can also share higher order qualities

Question 29

What consists of a descriptive analysis?

Answer 29

• Tendency to simply paraphrase participant’s account
• Lacks any real depth or interpretation.
• Includes a lot of ‘descriptive’ themes (i.e., ones that do not attempt to capture the experiential essence of the phenomenon)
• May have very few or even no quotations to support those themes
• Or includes a lot of quotations (sometimes in a ‘stack’ without any analysis between them)

-The presentation of a lot of ‘descriptive’ themes (i.e., ones that do not attempt to capture the experiential essence of the phenomenon) with very few or even no quotations to support those themes.

-Presents a lot of quotations (sometimes in a ‘stack’ without any analysis between them, or ‘boxed off’ from the rest of the text in the findings section) with the idea that more quotations equal more evidence, which is erroneous.

Question 30

What are characteristics of an interpretive analysis?

Answer 30

-Presents fewer themes - a more synthesized and coherent theme structure.

-Quotations tend to reflect the appropriate density of evidence for the sample size of the project (see Smith, 2011 for further details).

-Interpretation of extracts is nuanced, coherent, grounded in the data.

-Extracts presented are interesting, plausible, and enlightening about the participant’s psychological world.

-An analysis that is representative of the ‘purely or mostly descriptive’ category is one that presents fewer themes, usually indicating that that analyst has taken time to carry out detailed and systematic coding of the data and has revisited the data and analysis repeatedly to produce a more synthesized and coherent theme structure.

-Quotations tend to reflect the appropriate density of evidence for the sample size of the project and the interpretation of the extracts is nuanced, coherent, grounded in the data extracts presented, interesting, plausible, and enlightening about the participant’s psychological world.

Question 31

What are characteristics of an over-interpretive analysis?

Answer 31

-Analysis reveals imposition of the analyst’s presumptions, biases, or preconceptions onto the data.

-These could be theoretical, experiential or personal – but not grounded in the data.

-Over-interpretation is surprisingly easy to do but results in an interpretative narrative that is partly or wholly ungrounded in the data (meaning there is little or nothing in the data extracts that support the interpretation provided).

-Analysis is usually typified by an analytical commentary that reveals some form of imposition of the analyst’s presumptions, biases, or preconceptions onto the data.

-These can be theoretical (e.g., drawn from theories familiar to the analyst) or experiential (e.g., the analyst has some prior experience of the phenomenon under study and allows that knowledge to infiltrate the analysis) or personal (e.g., the analyst may have collected data from someone who they are acquainted with and is allowing their foreknowledge of that person’s everyday life and situations to permeate their analytical interpretations in an unfiltered manner).

-Over-interpretation is surprisingly easy to do but results in an interpretative narrative that is partly or wholly ungrounded in the data – that means there is little or nothing in the data extracts that support the interpretation provided

Question 32

Step 4: How do we cluster emergent themes?

Answer 32

Emergent themes organised into a preliminary structure
- Capturing the sense of the participants account at a very basic level of analysis.

Assess possible interrelationships in emergent themes
- Looking for interrelations between different emergent themes

As reaching gestalt condense themes per person
-Consolidate the information down
-End up with a set of clustered themes

-Perception of health/worth

-End up with clustered themes which make sense i.e., tells a story on the phenomenon

Question 33

Step 5: How do we compare case for convergence and divergence/shared themes?

Answer 33

Compare case for convergence and divergence
-Look for similarities and differences across each of your participants account
-What’s happening overall for your participants?

Organise shared themes
-Task is to cluster themes across all samples

-Deviant cases are pointless but IPA contains an element of it to some regard (lecturer recommends to avoid it)

Question 34

Step 6: How do we create superordinate and subordinate theme development?

Answer 34

Subordinate:
-Recurrent themes which appear across one third or half of the participants in the study.

-Analytical work which aims to capture the most significant aspects of participants accounts whilst also brining out the nuances within the theme.

-They are more descriptive

Superordinate themes:
-Highly abstracted themes which aim to capture the key aspects of the experience and the subordinate theme from a more abstract/conceptual lens. (hierarchical)

-More abstract themes at the top

-Superordinate themes=your top themes

-Subordinate=your granula themes

Question 35

Step 7: How do we create the writing?

Answer 35

-Be aware that you might not be able to write everything you have done- focus on aspects which appear key to participants accounts.

-Opportunity for you as the author to reflect the analytic work you have completed

-Don’t hide behind multiple quotes- be confident in your analytical work and let it be the focus of your writing (paper)

-Capture similarities in participants accounts but also bring to light individual nuances.

-Read other qualitative work for inspiration!

Question 36

What is Reflexivity?

Answer 36

-IPA recognises the central role of the researcher within the research process-the final analysis is after all the product of interpretation.

-Heidegger ideas around preconceptions- important to note these down (e.g. memo notes)

-Allowing the reader to assess its trustworthiness.

-Will have to write about reflexivity and its relationship to the data (when doing 3rd qualitative project!)

Question 37

What is Bracketing?

Answer 37

Gadamer (1975): the important thing is to be aware of one’s own bias, so that the text can present itself in all its otherness and thus assert its own truth against one’s own fore-meaning.

Question 38

What are some criticisms of IPA?

Answer 38

-In choosing the variables you want to study you are already making assumptions about what is important or a key feature of a phenomenon.

-End product is the researcher’s interpretation – analysis is thorough and systematic, and interpretations are embedded in the participants account- independent audit

-Commitment to Ideography: cannot generalize

-In focusing on one individual, we can help illuminate the experiences of others.

-Human experience is complex- individual analysis can do justice and bring to light important features

-Theoretical transferability

-It can’t be generalised

-There are a lot of steps to do in terms of methodology (some argue waste of time)

Question 39

What has Flower & Colleagues’ work shaped?

Answer 39

1. European and National Policy (NICE)
2. Local service provision
3. Underpins one of the ten principles in the WHO European Region’s (53 countries) policy framework on scaling up HIV testing and counselling across the region (presented at European Parliament world aids day 2010)

Question 40

What’s good practise in IPA? (design-based)

Answer 40

 Ensuring your research question matches the methodology (for IPA – deep insights, psychological, for more theoretical
analysis would choose grounded theory)

 Ensure your recruitment pool can answer the research question (exclusion/inclusion criteria) aka “purposive sampling”

 Ensuring that the sample is homogenous (i.e. similar on a key variable to the research question such i.e. clinically depressed) otherwise analysis becomes troublesome in IPA

Question 41

What’s good practise in IPA? (interview-based)

Answer 41

 Using a semi-structured interview to guide your interview (gives structure and direction to interview couple with flexibility to ask nuanced questions).

 Picking up on important participant insights and questioning them.

 Effectively prime participants for what the study is about.

 Pilot your interview/ practice interview techniques.

 Ensure interviews are ended well, i.e. not on a particularly sensitive topic.

Question 42

What’s good practise in IPA? (analysis-based)

Answer 42

 Being reflexive (i.e. keeping an eye on how your biases might affect your analysis) aka. “Bracketing”

 Doing analysis case by case during the beginning stages (vs all at once)

Question 43

What’s bad practise in IPA? (design-based)

Answer 43

 Recruiting a large sample (difficult to explore each case in-depth)

Question 44

What’s bad practise in IPA? (interview-based)

Answer 44

• Asking closed ended - yes/no questions
• Asking about facts versus psychological, social and personal events important to the participant.
• Challenging the truthfulness of someone’s answer.
• Not giving participants enough time to answer questions/interrupt their insights.

Question 45

What’s bad practise in IPA? (analysis-based)

Answer 45

• Rush into coding data without getting a sense of the transcript first.
• Analysis that does not interpret what the participants psychological experience is (this is key to IPA and without interpretation analysis is simply not IPA).