Phenomenology

Mugridge, E., Pennell, L., & Porch, A.

Introduction to Phenomenology

Theory Origin

Different Types of Phenomenology

Philosophical Perspectives of Phenomenology

Intentionality

Phenomenological Methods

Characteristics of Phenomenology

Key Concepts of Phenomenology

Strengths

Weaknesses

Validity of Phenomenology

Questions to Assess Validity with Phenomenology

Strategies to Ensure Validity

Assumptions in Phenomenology

References

Introduction to Phenomenology

Phenomenology is a qualitative research method that gains information about a phenomenon based on the lived experience of individuals. It illuminates how individuals experienced a situation through inductive qualitative methods such as interviews, discussions, and participant observations, while presenting the research from the participants’ perspective. Although the origins of phenomenology can be traced back to Kant and Hegel, Husserl was recognized as “the fountainhead of phenomenology in the twentieth century” (Groenewald, 2004). Epistemologically, phenomenological approaches emphasize the importance of interpretation of individual subjectivity and knowledge (Lester, 1999). Its’ elementary definition can be thought of as “how we experience.” Phenomenology is rooted in philosophical and humanities traditions that seek to reflect on pre-reflective human experience (van Manen & Adams, 2010). Before researchers conceptualize, abstract or explain them, phenomenological researchers try to capture and express in language the experiential meanings as lived through individuals. Therefore, phenomenology is a powerful research method that seeks to understand the first-hand experience by gaining insights into the motivations and actions of the participants outside of the generally accepted theory.

| Click here for a presentation we made on phenomenology.

Theory Origin

Phenomenology had been practiced for centuries without a name, but just like epistemology came known though Descartes, phenomenology came known by Husserl (Smith, 2003). Historically (it may be argued), Socrates and Plato put ethics first, then Aristotle put metaphysics or ontology first, then Descartes put epistemology first, then Russell put logic first, and then Husserl (in his later transcendental phase) put phenomenology first (Smith, 2003).

Hindu and Buddhist philosophers reflecting in their various meditative states, was an early form of phenomenology.
Similarly, Descartes, Hume, and Kant characterized what thought, imagination, and perception was, essentially practicing phenomenology.
The discipline of phenomenology ultimately came to fruition by Husserl in the 20^th century in the Encyclopedia of Phenomenology.

Different Types of Phenomenology

Transcendental Constitutive Phenomenology

Studies how objects are constituted in pure or transcendental consciousness, setting aside questions of any relation to the natural world around us.

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Naturalistic Constitutive Phenomenology

Studies how consciousness constitutes or takes things in the world of nature, assuming with the natural attitude that consciousness is part of nature.

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Generative Historicist phenomenology

Studies how meaning, as found in our experience, is generated in historical processes of collective experience over time.

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Existential Phenomenology

Studies concrete human existence, including our experience of free choice or action in concrete situations.

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Genetic Phenomenology

Studies the genesis of meanings of things within one’s own stream of experience.

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Hermeneutical Phenomenology

Studies interpretive structures of experience, how we understand and engage things around us in our human world, including ourselves and others.

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Realistic Phenomenology

Studies the structure of consciousness and intentionality, assuming it occurs in a real world that is largely external to consciousness and not somehow brought into being by consciousness (Smith, 2003).

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Philosophical Perspectives of Phenomenology

Intentionality

Every act of consciousness we perform, every experience that we have, is intentional: it is essentially “consciousness of” or an “experience of” something or other. (reword) (Sokolowski, 1999).

Conscious Self

This comes with introspective reflection, when one reflects on their experience (Gallagher & Zahavi, 2021).

Qualia

Patterns on one's own sensation or sensible patterns of worldly things like the look and smells of flowers (Smith, 2003).

First-Person Perspective

How an individual has access to themselves, their emotions, experiences, thoughts, and actions (Schraube, 2014).

Phenomenological Methods

1. Bracketing

Where the researcher establishes their preconceived beliefs in relation to the researched phenomena. The researcher “brackets” out any presuppositions to analyze the information in a non-biased manner.

2. Intuiting

This proceeds after bracketing where the researcher concerns themselves with the meaning of the research, providing the variance of data for an understanding to be met.

3. Analyzing

Typically coding, is done to capture the significant meanings from the perceived phenomenon. Persistent work and review are necessary in this step to ascertain saturated data.

4. Describing

This is when the researcher discusses the comprehension and definition of the studied phenomenon (Greening, 2019).

Characteristics of Phenomenology

Phenomenological research methodology has four underlying characteristics:

Descriptive

To describe a phenomenon, not explain the phenomenon.

Reductive

Assuring that biases and assumptions about the phenomenon do not interfere with the description of the phenomenon.

Essence

This is the core meaning of the phenomenon based on the experiences of the individuals being studied.

Intentionality

Objective statement of the experience as a reality and the reflection of the consciousness of said objective statement. Essentially, the relationship between consciousness and reality (Umanailo, 2019).

Key Concepts of Phenomenology

“Phenomenology is a research method that emphasizes the study of conscious experiences as a way of understanding the reality around us” (Bhattacherjee, 2012, p. 109). A phenomenological study focuses on the experiences of a group of individuals vs. a single or a few individuals. A researcher will want to focus on a phenomenon and gather descriptions that focus on “what” and “how” they experience the phenomenon (Creswell & Poth, 2018).

Key Points (Creswell & Poth, 2018):

Focus on the phenomenon being studied.
Requires a group of individuals.
The researcher must be transparent about any bias on the phenomenon. A phenomenological approach is one without any preconceived judgments about the phenomenon.
Data collection and analysis. This is to collect participants’ experiences surrounding the phenomenon. This is typically done with interviews. During data analysis, themes are developed.
“An ending for phenomenology with a descriptive passage that discusses the essence of the experience for individuals incorporating “what” they have experienced and “how” they have experienced it” (p. 77).

An example of a research question is, “what is the lived experience of people with a recent depression diagnosis?” This question focuses on the phenomenon of receiving a recent depression diagnosis. We want to focus less on the individual and more on the phenomenon itself and the participants’ experience surrounding receiving a recent depression diagnosis.

Strengths

Phenomenology provides the ability for the researcher to use their own personal interest and motivation for the study. Research shows that having a strong interest in the topic supports completion of the study (Patton, 2002). A phenomenological study focuses research on how people perceive an event or phenomena, rather than simply how the phenomena exists within a vacuum (Maxwell, 2013). The data collection is performed through subjective, direct responses, allowing the researcher to gain firsthand knowledge of the participants experiences. With a large enough study group, the data collected can be quite rich, creating a unique approach to understanding the phenomena (Maxwell, 2013). This type of research also allows for flexibility as revisions can be made throughout the study if new experiences emerge (Patton, 2002).

Weaknesses

The human factor allows for bias therefore the researchers role must account for biases, beliefs, and values at the start of the study (Maxwell, 2013; Patton, 2002). Phenomenology is known to be time-consuming and a labour intensive type of study method as there are large amounts of data to be analyzed. With so much data, it is often difficult to present the findings in a useful manner for other researchers or practitioners to understand and easily interpret (Patton, 2002).

Validity of Phenomenology

Like all types of qualitative research is important to be transparent about processes so that validity can be assessed. “The assessment of scientific knowledge involves three major concepts, namely, validation, reliability and generalization” (Sausa, 2014, p. 213).

When appraising a qualitative study, the following should be considered (Sausa, 2014):

Consideration 1

Trustworthiness of the method chosen to do the qualitative study. Was this the right method for the research question?

Consideration 2

Adequate description of the framework and method. Could the study could be replicated?

Consideration 3

Are the results that were interpreted by the researcher plausible? Another reason there needs to be so much transparency – will another researcher see these same results?

Questions to Assess Validity with Phenomenology

Five questions for assessing the quality/validity of a phenomenological study as posed by Creswell & Poth (2018).

Is there a clear phenomenological question?
Does the author clearly understand the components of a phenomenological study? Does the author "ground the study in primary and scholarly phenomenological literature" (Creswell & Poth, 2018, p.273)?
Proper procedures of data analysis in phenomenology?
Does the study describe the overall experience of the participants?
Does it explain the author's reflexive thinking throughout the study?

Strategies to Ensure Validity

Creswell & Poth (2018) recommend that researchers consider 2 of the following lenses as strategies to ensure validity with a qualitative study: the researcher’s lens, the participant’s lens, and the reader’s/reviewer’s lens.

Researcher Lens

Triangulation of multiple data sources. This means the researcher uses various methods, investigators, and theories to validate evidence.
“Discovering negative case analysis or disconfirming evidence. The researcher refines working hypothesis as the inquiry advances in light of negative or rival evidence” (Creswell & Poth, 2018, p. 261).
Examining and being transparent about any researcher bias.

Participant Lens

Seeking the participants’ feedback for their views on the findings and interpretations of those themes.
Extended engagement with the participants or an increase in time observing the phenomenon.
The researcher encourages collaboration opportunities with the participants.

Readers/Reviewer Lens

Facilitating external audits of the study's process and results to assess accuracy.
Ensuring very detailed descriptions of the participants or phenomenon.
Facilitating a peer review or “debriefing of the data and research process” (Creswell & Poth, 2018, p. 263). This peer needs to be someone very familiar with the phenomenon of interest and the research process.

Assumptions in Phenomenology

There are fundamental qualities, or assumptions, of each phenomenon that is under investigation and how it is related to the environment where it occurs (Bendersky & McGinn, 2009).

There are four key assumptions in research methodology: ontological – what is being studied (study of beings), epistemological – what/ how we know (study of knowledge), axiological – what/ how we value and value judgments (study of nature), and methodological – what methods used (study of methods) (Capella University, n.d.).

Philosophical assumptions held by the researchers indicates how they go about studying the phenomenon (7 different types of phenomenology).

References

Bendersky, C., & McGinn, K. L. (2009, April 16). Phenomenological Assumptions and Knowledge Dissemination within Organizational Studies. HBS Working Knowledge. http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/phenomenological-assumptions-and-knowledge-dissemination-within-organizational-studies

Bhattacherjee, A. (2012). Social Science Research: Principles, methods, and practices (2nd ed.): Vol. Book 3. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/oa_textbooks/3

Capella University. (n.d.). Research Philosophy and Assumptions [Web page]. Research Philosophy and Assumptions. https://campustools.capella.edu/BBCourse_Production/PhD_Colloquia/Track_2/SOE/phd_t2_soe_u03s1_h03_assumptn.html

Creswsell, J. W., & Poth, C. N. (2014). Qualitative Inquiry & Research Design: Chosing Among Five Approaches (4th ed.). Sage Publication.

Gallagher, S., & Zahavi, D. (2021). Phenomenological Approaches to Self-Consciousness. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2021). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2021/entries/self-consciousness-phenomenological/

Greening, N. (2019). Phenomenological Research Methodology. Scientific Research Journal, VII(V). https://doi.org/10.31364/SCIRJ/v7.i5.2019.P0519656

Maxwell, J. (2013). Qualitative Research Design: An Interactive Approach (3rd ed.). Sage.

Patton, M. (2014, November). Qualitative Research & Evaluation Methods. SAGE Publications Inc. https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/qualitative-research-evaluation-methods/book232962

Schraube, E. (2014). First-Person Perspective. In T. Teo (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology (pp. 733–736). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7_113

Smith, D. W. (2003). Phenomenology. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2018). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/phenomenology/

Sokolowski, R. (Ed.). (1999). What Is Intentionality, and Why Is It Important? In Introduction to Phenomenology (pp. 8–16). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511809118.002

Umanailo, M. C. B. (2019). Overview Phenomenological Research. https://doi.org/10.31222/osf.io/4t2fv

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