Phenomenological: Qualitative Research and Research Methodology
Chapter 4: Research methodology
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CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Phenomenology is the science that studies truth. It stands back from our rational involvement with things and marvels at the fact that there is disclosure, that things do appear, that the world can be understood and that we in our life thinking serve as datives for the manifestation of things Sokolowski (2000, p. 185)
4.1.
QUALITATIVE VERSUS QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
4.1.1. Introduction
In psychology research, few quantitative studies have definitively demonstrated the complexities involved in the process of psychotherapeutic change. Many researchers in the field are critical of existing quantitative research methods and argue that, in controlling and measuring variables, results, although statistically significant, are often clinically superficial (Giorgi, 1995; Yalom, 1995; Kotsch, 2000; McLeod, 2001). The shortcomings of quantitative research methods for investigating phenomena such as psychotherapeutic change are particularly evident when attempting to examine psychotherapeutic interventions such as ‘art therapy’. Art therapy involves the use of art images as symbolic communications in therapy. These images may reveal unconscious meaning systems that are inexpressible in words. Although an emotional experience in art therapy may be profound and life changing, it is not always immediately accessible or recognisable to the client on a conscious or cognitive level. It is often months (or years) later that the client may be able to put into words what has taken place on an unconscious level. This makes therapeutic change in art therapy particularly unyielding to research in general, but especially unyielding to the use of quantitative methods.
In contrast to quantitative methodologies, which focus on causal relationships explicated in terms of observational statements, verifications and predictions, qualitative methodologies (or qualitative inquiry) offer alternative ways of
74
CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Phenomenology is the science that studies truth. It stands back from our rational involvement with things and marvels at the fact that there is disclosure, that things do appear, that the world can be understood and that we in our life thinking serve as datives for the manifestation of things Sokolowski (2000, p. 185)
4.1.
QUALITATIVE VERSUS QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
4.1.1. Introduction
In psychology research, few quantitative studies have definitively demonstrated the complexities involved in the process of psychotherapeutic change. Many researchers in the field are critical of existing quantitative research methods and argue that, in controlling and measuring variables, results, although statistically significant, are often clinically superficial (Giorgi, 1995; Yalom, 1995; Kotsch, 2000; McLeod, 2001). The shortcomings of quantitative research methods for investigating phenomena such as psychotherapeutic change are particularly evident when attempting to examine psychotherapeutic interventions such as ‘art therapy’. Art therapy involves the use of art images as symbolic communications in therapy. These images may reveal unconscious meaning systems that are inexpressible in words. Although an emotional experience in art therapy may be profound and life changing, it is not always immediately accessible or recognisable to the client on a conscious or cognitive level. It is often months (or years) later that the client may be able to put into words what has taken place on an unconscious level. This makes therapeutic change in art therapy particularly unyielding to research in general, but especially unyielding to the use of quantitative methods.
In contrast to quantitative methodologies, which focus on causal relationships explicated in terms of observational statements, verifications and predictions, qualitative methodologies (or qualitative inquiry) offer alternative ways of