Attending to emotion in a metaphor for success in physics with poetic analysis

Abstract

In previous work guided by Feminist Standpoint Theory, we explored woman participants' metaphorical expressions for success in physics. However, some participants pointed out to the researchers that the (re)presentation of their metaphors in scientific prose was lacking the intended emotional expression. In this study, a participant (A.V.S.) joined the research team to interpret her metaphor about blowing a dandelion. Following Colby & Bodily's (2018) poetic analysis, we apply Ricoeur's hermeneutic phenomenology in the interpretation process, which highlights the relationship between interpreters, the text and the metaphor author. Our poetic analysis also applies found poetry to (re)construct the transcript in ways that provide fresh insights and emphasizes the emotions embedded in the original expressions. This collaborative poetic analysis seeks to introduce qualitative methods to the physics education research community that tend to the emotional connotations of interview data and elevate participant perspectives with fidelity. just this little idea grows into these possibilities Breathe.