Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is concerned with the detailed examination of personal lived experience. IPA is part of a family of phenomenological psychology approaches, all of which differ to some degree in their theoretical emphases and methodological commitments but are in broad agreement about the relevance of an experiential perspective for the discipline. IPA avows a phenomenological commitment to examine a topic, as far as is possible, in its own terms. For IPA this inevitably involves an interpretative process on the part of both researcher and participant. IPA is concerned with the detailed examination of particulars, first providing an in-depth account of each case before moving to look for patternings of convergence and divergence across cases. A text offering a detailed account of the theoretical foundations and empirical practices of IPA was published in 2009 (Smith, Flowers and Larkin). IPA was first articulated in the UK in the 1990s and initially was picked up as an approach to the psychology of experience in health and clinical/counselling psychology. Since then it has considerably widened its reach. It is now one of the best established qualitative approaches in UK psychology but is also used increasingly by psychology researchers throughout the world. In parallel to this growth has been a broadening of the domains of inquiry IPA is employed in. One now finds IPA research in organizational studies (e. (Hefferon and Ollis, 2006). What appeals to researchers in these diverse fields is IPA's explicit commitment to understanding phenomena of interest from a first person perspective and its belief in the value of subjective knowledge for psychological understanding. 2 Beyond these developments, IPA continues to mature with evidence of researchers adopting a creative and imaginative stance to the approach which is in keeping with its original spirit-to provide qualitative researchers with ways of thinking about and researching psychological topics which are underpinned by phenomenology and hermeneutics. As part of the process of helping researchers to conduct excellent hermeneutic phenomenological research, one of us has written papers elaborating evaluative criteria for what constitutes a good IPA study (Smith, 2011a, 2011b) and these will be discussed later in the chapter. The chapter begins with a discussion of IPA's intellectual origins emphasizing the phenomenological and hermeneutic touchstones which inform it. Following this, some key characteristics of IPA will be identified and described, namely, experience, idiography and interpretation. IPA has always encouraged engagement with other qualitative approaches as well as working with developments in mainstream psychology and these will be reflected on paying particular attention to cognition and language. This will be followed by a section examining the current picture of IPA research. We finish the chapter with some concluding thoughts. THE INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS OF IPA: PHENOMENOLOGY & HERMENEUTICS IPA has a long ...

The experiences of caregivers providing home care for terminally ill family members at the end of life: A phenomenological study in Bahrain

“…Based on Heidegger's hermeneutically philosophy, the relationship between individuals and their world is hermeneutic deduced as a hermeneutic circle. [24] Hence, IPA is a two stage interpretation method that helps the researcher make sense of participants making sense of their experiences; this is called double hermeneutic. [29] 2.3 IPA IPA is informed by three key concepts, Phenomenology, Hermeneutics and Idiography.…”

“…were focused on uncovering the caregivers' needs and their struggles." The researcher designed the questions following a review of the literature [24][25][26][27] and also based on her professional expertise in this area. Following the pilot interview and a review of the data generated by both authors the interview schedule was slightly modified, especially in relation to the sequencing of the questions.…”

“…According to Eatough and Smith [24] and Smith et al, [22] IPA studies are usually conducted using small number of participants because the exhaustive analysis of every transcript takes long period with the aim of producing detailed explanation of the lived experiences. Thus, IPA is described as an idiographic form of examination, striving for a careful analysis of cases more than aiming for generalizations.…”

“…In fact, Smith is recently advocating the detailed examination of a single case study. [22,24] In all eight family caregivers were recruited between the oncology outpatients clinic, the oncology wards, and a private/general ward. The average age of the primary caregivers was 43 years.…”

“…Sensitivity to context was shown by constructing an interview guide that focused on discovering the experience of home care at the end of life and most of the questions were taken from the reviewed literature. [24][25][26][27] One participant added to the actual sample was interviewed for pilot study to test the validity and reliability of the research questions used in the interview. The interview guide was discussed with the researcher's supervisor who helped in modifying the questions that addressed participants' feelings about knowing the diagnosis and the subject of death.…”