Bridging the divide between knowing and doing in IPA
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Qual Academy partner Elly Phillips
October 14, 2026
A common struggle point for students doing IPA for the first time is reading the books and papers, grasping the concepts, and then sitting down with a transcript to start DOING analysis and feeling stuck.
There are so many possible reasons for this. Doing IPA, like many things, is a skill. We might know a lot about the concepts and theories, but actually doing it is a different thing (I talked about this in my first blog post, making the unlikely comparison between rock climbing and doing IPA). Students are often worried about doing their analysis 'right' and not missing something important. It can feel like there is a lot to do. It might not be obvious how or where to start. How much is enough or not enough? When should you move on? What should you aim to produce at each stage, if anything?
I think of this as the 'experience gap', and I touched on this gap in a previous post about our workshops. Teachers can often overestimate novices' knowledge (Tullis & Feder, 2023), but there is also a lot of taken-for-granted procedural knowledge that is only acquired through experience. Our workshops aim to fill this experience gap and provide a bridge for you from the side of knowing to the side of confidently doing IPA.
Practising skills with support
Practising skills with support
IPA should be practised, just like any other skill, from playing the piano to skiing. Wherever possible, our workshops include opportunities to practise the concepts we talk about. We share and discuss examples, guide you through tackling them, and suggest ideas for questions that you can ask yourself during your own analytic work. There are several benefits to this. It may be one of the few chances to actually practise parts of the research process, depending on the structure of the teaching you've received. It also removes pressure, as you can try out various steps before moving to your own data. We share any material we generate together so you can refer to it later as a reference and a reminder. And you can ask questions as we work on the material so you don't have to try to unravel areas of confusion alone.
Sharing our experience
Sharing our experience
We share experiences from many years of conducting, teaching and supervising IPA. We've both worked with many students over the years, so we've helped students with many different research designs and topics, and to overcome a wide range of obstacles and challenges in their research. Of course, we also have experience from our own research about strategies and solutions to manage the practical parts of conducting qualitative analysis, from organising and managing data to how to use writing to develop your analysis. We include plenty of tips and ideas that help you fill the practical gap and get a sense of what is useful, common or helpful during your research. These are the kinds of things that are often not written about (although there is now a growing experiential literature about different aspects of qualitative research), so it's a gap you might struggle to get filled elsewhere.
Scaffolding and synergy
Scaffolding and synergy
Two other benefits of the workshops are scaffolding and synergy. As moderators, we model strategies, provide scaffolding for your learning (you're doing the work yourself, but with us giving input and support where needed), introduce analytic ideas and concepts, and help you develop skills to apply to your own work. It's a chance to work on different aspects of research but with immediate feedback and support where you need it. Working in a small group generates synergy from different perspectives, experiences and disciplines. Because input comes from the whole group, it reduces the pressure of the weight of analysis being just on you. There are always opportunities for the whole group to create solutions, ideas and inspiration together.
What else you need to know
What else you need to know
Our workshops are firmly focused on moving 'beyond the book' and building that bridge from concept to practice. We do assume you have read at least some of the background, for example, one of the IPA books (Smith et al., 2022 or Smith & Nizza, 2022) or on reflexive TA for that workshop (e.g., Braun & Clarke, 2022), and we don't rehash what you can read elsewhere. We focus on how you can implement your analysis, raise awareness of the problems and pitfalls, and discuss its application to your research, through a small group where everyone has space to bring their own unique concerns. You leave with some practical experience, new strategies, and questions or steps to take directly to your own analysis.
References
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2022). Thematic Analysis: A practical guide. SAGE.
Smith, J. A., Flowers, P., & Larkin, M. (2022). Interpretative phenomenological analysis: Theory, method and research (2nd ed.). SAGE.
Smith, J. A., & Nizza, I. E. (2022). Essentials of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000259-000
Tullis, J. G., & Feder, B. (2023). The “curse of knowledge” when predicting others’ knowledge. Memory & Cognition, 51(5), 1214–1234. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-022-01382-3
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