Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)
What is it?
Jonathan A Smith
School of Psychology
Birkbeck University of London
Ja.smith@bbk.ac.uk
What is it?
How do you do it?
What does it look like?
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)
Focus on lived experience of participant
Try to make sense of the meanings of events/ experiences/ states to participants themselves
Naturalistic (qualitative methodology)
small n
Dual components:
Phenomenological,
Interpretative plus
Idiographic not nomothetic
Phenomenology
‘Going back to the things themselves’ (Edmund Husserl)
Reflexive turn inwards away from the objects in the world and towards our perception of those objects
however intentionality links perceiver with perceived
Different phenomenologies
1. Idiographic
Detailed analysis of elements of the reflected personal experience- the subjective experience of the social world. IPA does this (or at least attempts to)
2. Eidetic
Establish essential features/general structure of that experience across people.
Giorgi’s empirical phenomenology tries to do this
3. Transcendental
Put to one side the content of the subjective process in order to attend to pure consciousness itself.
Interpretative
Hermeneutics of identity/empathy
Hermeneutics of questioning/being critical
Understanding combines these
Double hermeneutic:
Researcher is trying to make sense of the participant trying to make sense of….
The hermeneutic circle
Part and whole
Heidegger and Gadamer on how fore-understanding important in interpretation but sometimes may only be discovered in confrontation with new
Methodology of IPA
Data collection
Purposive homogeneous sampling
Interview schedule used flexibly- contrast to structured interview
Verbatim transcript
Analysis
Systematic search for themes in first case
Forge connections between themes,
Then move across case
Usual aim: establishment of
What is it?
Jonathan A Smith
School of Psychology
Birkbeck University of London
Ja.smith@bbk.ac.uk
What is it?
How do you do it?
What does it look like?
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)
Focus on lived experience of participant
Try to make sense of the meanings of events/ experiences/ states to participants themselves
Naturalistic (qualitative methodology)
small n
Dual components:
Phenomenological,
Interpretative plus
Idiographic not nomothetic
Phenomenology
‘Going back to the things themselves’ (Edmund Husserl)
Reflexive turn inwards away from the objects in the world and towards our perception of those objects
however intentionality links perceiver with perceived
Different phenomenologies
1. Idiographic
Detailed analysis of elements of the reflected personal experience- the subjective experience of the social world. IPA does this (or at least attempts to)
2. Eidetic
Establish essential features/general structure of that experience across people.
Giorgi’s empirical phenomenology tries to do this
3. Transcendental
Put to one side the content of the subjective process in order to attend to pure consciousness itself.
Interpretative
Hermeneutics of identity/empathy
Hermeneutics of questioning/being critical
Understanding combines these
Double hermeneutic:
Researcher is trying to make sense of the participant trying to make sense of….
The hermeneutic circle
Part and whole
Heidegger and Gadamer on how fore-understanding important in interpretation but sometimes may only be discovered in confrontation with new
Methodology of IPA
Data collection
Purposive homogeneous sampling
Interview schedule used flexibly- contrast to structured interview
Verbatim transcript
Analysis
Systematic search for themes in first case
Forge connections between themes,
Then move across case
Usual aim: establishment of