Are Phenomenology and Postpositivism Strange Bedfellows?

Abstract

Researchers are advocating that a necessary condition of scholarly research is congruence between philosophical positions and research approaches. Phenomenology and postpositivism, traditionally, may appear to be situated in scientific inquiry as polar opposites and mutually exclusive paradigms. This article (a) describes the reflections of a nurse researcher and clarifies her philosophical assumptions; (b) delineates the postpositive paradigm and the interpretive paradigm, which traditionally includes phenomenology; (c) discusses phenomenology as a philosophy, an approach, and a research method; and (d) demonstrates the consistency between postpositivism and phenomenology. Nurse researchers must be aware of their philosophical assumptions and appraise the philosophical underpinnings of the methodologies, but this process should not restrict and limit their exploration of possibilities and the creativity in their efforts to address the growing challenges that await nursing science research.

Faith-Based Mentoring of Ex-Felons in Higher Education: Colson Scholars Reflect on Their Transitions

“…Post-positivism operates on three quintessential research tenets including: (a) axiologically, that a researcher's values inevitably influence the research questions and outcomes 4 ; that (b) epistemologically, a researcher's theory, hypotheses, or framework (that is, an a priori theory) inevitably influences the research; and that (c) ontologically, our understandings of reality are constructed and fragment apprehensions of a singular overarching reality or truth (Guba and Lincoln 1994;Merleau-Ponty [1945] 1962Tashakkori and Teddlie 1998;Teddlie and Tashakkori 2011). Post-positivist assumptions and Merleau-Pontian (Merleau-Ponty [1945] 1962) phenomenological methods (that is, with emphases on perceptions, bodily interaction with the world, and subjectivity) share similar perspectives and are entirely congruent (Clark 1998;Racher and Robinson 2003).…”

“…As I reviewed the interview transcripts, and throughout the content data analysis and synthesis processes, including the phenomenological reduction, imaginative variation, and textural description phases, I gave attention to the practice of epoché and bracketing (Jones et al 2013;Merleau-Ponty [1945] 1962Moustakas 1994;Racher and Robinson 2003;Van Manen 1990). Immersing myself in the data and manually theming, coding, and categorizing the six interview transcripts (Creswell 2012), I identified deductive codes related to Schlossberg's (1984) transition theory and inductive codes not identified with the theory.…”

A Researcher’s Dilemma: Philosophy in Crafting Dissertations and Theses

“…The evolution of post positivism emerged through the need for an alternative to positivism (Morgan 2007;Racher and Robinson 2003). Paradigms seem to beget counter-paradigms.…”

Succeeding in School: The Online Reflections of Native American and Other Minority Students

“…The analysis was conducted from a constructivist epistemology, which proposes that participants' knowledge of reality is socially constructed based on interactions in the present and past with the world around them, that research is a product of the values of the researcher, and that research is an interactive process between the researcher and the participants (Miles & Huberman, 1994;Racher & Robinson, 2002). Therefore, the theoretical framework acknowledged that students' responses were a product of their socially constructed reality, and the actual analysis of the responses was guided by the structure and the multimodal framework of the SIS instrument.…”

“…The main focus of the study was to uncover themes related to students' responses to the SIS instrument (Racher & Robinson, 2002), as well as their perspectives regarding their feelings about school. The qualitative examination was conducted from a phenomenological perspective, illuminating themes associated with the perspective of the participants, their feelings and ideas related to their interaction with the SIS program, and their responses to the prompts of the instrument (Miles & Huberman, 1994).…”