Schools of phenomenology have developed different approaches to data analysis.

Three frequently used methods for

descriptive phenomenology are the methods of Colaizzi (1978), Giorgi (1985), and Van Kaam (1966), all of whom are from the Duquesne school of phenomenology, based on Husserl’s philosophy.

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The basic outcome of all three methods is the description of the meaning of an experience, often through the identification of essential themes.

Phenomenologists search for common patterns shared by particular instances.

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There are, some important differences among these three approaches.

Colaizzi’s method, for example, is the only one

that calls for a validation of results by returning to study participants.

Giorgi’s analysis relies solely on researchers.

His view is that it is inappropriate either to return to participants to validate findings or to use external judges to review the analysis.

Van Kaam’s method requires that intersubjective agreement be reached with other expert judges.

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Bondas and Eriksson (2001) studied the lived experiences of pregnancy among Finnish women.

Eighty interviews with 40 women, together with data from nonparticipant observations, were analyzed according to Colaizzi’s method.

The researchers extracted significant statements pertaining to the phenomena from transcriptions.

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Meanings were formulated and organized into 10 themes, which were clustered into 3 comprehensive categories and integrated into an exhaustive description.

The three broad categories were the

perfect body, an altered mode of being, and striving for family communion (The act or an instance of sharing, as of thoughts or feelings).

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Phenomenologists using this Dutch approach combine characteristics of descriptive and interpretive phenomenology.

Van Manen’s (1990) method is an

example of this combined approach in which researchers try to grasp the essential meaning of the experience being studied.

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According to Van Manen, thematic aspects of experience can be uncovered or isolated from participants’ descriptions of the experience by three methods:

(1) the holistic approach

(2) the selective or highlighting approach

(3) the detailed or lineby- line approach.

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In the holistic approach, researchers view the text as a whole and try to capture its meanings.

In the selective approach, researchers

highlight or pull out statements or phrases that seem essential to the experience under study.

In the detailed approach, researchers analyze every sentence.

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Once themes have been identified, they become the objects of reflection and interpretation through follow-up interviews with participants.

Through this process, essential themes are discovered.

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In addition to identifying themes from the participants’ descriptions, Van Manen also calls for gleaning (the collection of leftover crops from farmers' fields after they have been mechanically harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest. Often gleaning is practiced by humanitarian groups which distribute the gleaned food to the poor and hungry) thematic descriptions from artistic sources.

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Van Manen urges qualitative researchers to keep in mind that poetry, literature, music, painting, and other art forms can provide a wealth of experiences that can be used to increase insights in the reflection process as the phenomenologist tries to interpret and grasp the essential meaning of the experience being studied.

These experiential descriptions in literature and art help challenge and stretch the phenomenologist’s interpretive sensibilities.

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Lauterbach (2001) used Van Manen’s method to investigate mothers’ experiences with the death of a wished-for baby.

Poetry, literature, mourning (state of sorrow over the death or departure of a loved one) art, and cemeteries (A place for burying the dead) were especially helpful in Lauterbach’s interpretation of the mothers’ experiences.

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For instance, Robert Frost’s poem, “Home Burial,” and John Milton’s poem, “On the Death of a Fair Infant Dying of a Cough,” were used in data analysis. Also, a painting by Charles Wilson Peale called Rachel Weeping, depicting a mother mourning the loss of her infant from smallpox in 1772, and memorial art in cemeteries, provided insight

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A third school of phenomenology is an interpretive approach called Heideggerian hermeneutics.

Diekelmann, Allen, and Tanner (1989) have described a seven-stage process of data analysis, the outcome of which is a description of shared practices and common meanings.

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1. All the interviews or texts are read for an overall understanding.

2. Interpretive summaries of each interview are written.

3. A team of researchers analyzes selected transcribed interviews or texts.

4. Any disagreements on interpretation are resolved by going back to the text.

5. Common meanings and shared practices are identified by comparing and contrasting the text. مقارنة.وتباين النص

6. Relationships among themes emerge. 7. A draft of the themes along with exemplars from

texts are presented to the team. Responses or suggestions are incorporated into the

final draft.

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Example of a Heideggerian hermeneutical analysis:

Foley, Minick, and Kee (2000) explored the experiences of military nurses as they engaged in advocacy during a military operation, and described their shared practices and common meanings.

The hermeneutical analysis used the seven stages described by Diekelmann and colleagues.

The stories of the 24 interviewed nurses revealed one constitutive pattern— safeguarding—and four related themes: advocating as protecting, advocating as attending the whole person, advocating as being the patient’s voice, and advocating as preserving personhood. 16

Pollio, Henley, and Thompson (1997) proposeanother method for conducting a hermeneutic phenomenological study.

Their method begins with bracketing. Their bracketing is not, however, viewed as

a subtractive process of removing one’s presuppositions, but instead as a positive process, a way of seeing.

Instead of suspending preconceived notions, as described by Husserl, Pollio, and colleagues call for researchers to apply a world view. تلك هي بين أقواس ومع ذلك ، ال ينظر

إليه على أنه عملية مطروح إزالة االفتراضات واحد ، ولكن بدال من ذلك عملية إيجابية ، وسيلة للرؤية.

بدال من تعليق األفكار المسبقة ، كما وصفها هوسرل ، بوليو ، ودعوة الزمالء للباحثين لتطبيق وجهة نظر .العالم

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Pollio and colleagues’ method begins with a bracketing interview.

The researcher is the first person to be interviewed about the topic under study, which raises his or her awareness of presuppositions (a supposition made prior to having knowledge).

Once interviews have been conducted and transcribed, the hermeneutic circle begins.

This is an interpretive process of continuously relating a part of the text (the transcribed interview) to the whole of the text.

Pollio and colleagues described three types of interpretation: group, idiographic (particular), and nomothetic (general).

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In group interpretation, a transcript is read aloud.

Meanings and relationships among meanings are discussed.

After one transcript is interpreted, the remaining transcripts are usually interpreted by the primary researcher.

At certain times the researcher goes back to the group with idiographic descriptions and nomothetic themes.

The group provides feedback on whether the descriptions and themes are supported by the data.

Each transcript is interpreted in the context of all

other interview transcripts.

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Figure 23-4 provides aschematic summary of Pollio and colleagues’ intervie process (p. 587) in the nursing research book

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F I G U R E 2 3 . 4 Schematic summary of Pollio and colleagues’ interview

Choose topic Self as focus

Participant as focus

Research community as focus

Text as focus

(Hermeneutic analysis

part-to-whole dialectic)

All (most) analyses

are done within context

of research group

Perform bracketing interview

Interview participants

Transcribe interviews

Read for meaning units

Cluster initial thematic meaning

Develop thematic structure

Present structure to research group

Report findings to participants

Prepare final report

Read for sense of whole

Example using Pollio and colleagues’ method:

Secrest (2000) investigated the quality of life of primary support persons of stroke survivors.

Before data collection, the researcher’s bracketing (A series or group of brackets; brackets, collectively) interview occurred.

Once it was transcribed, the bracketing interview was analyzed by the research group.

In-depth interviews were next conducted with 10 participants.

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Selected transcripts from the 10 interviews were read aloud to members of the research group and were analyzed, comparing the part of a transcript with its whole, and the whole transcript with other transcripts.

Through this interpretive process, three theme emerged: fragility (quality of being easily damaged or destroyed), vigilance (the process of paying close and continuous attention; "wakefulness, watchfulness) , and loss/responsibility.

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Beck (1998) conducted a descriptive phenomenological study of the experience of panic disorder in new mothers.

The purposive sample consisted of six women who had experienced their initial onset of panic disorder in the postpartum period.

Each mother participated in an in-depth interview in which she described her experiences living with panic after delivery. All interviews, which lasted from 50 minutes to 2 hours, were audiotaped and transcribed

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Colaizzi’s (1978) method was used to analyze verbatim transcripts.

After reading the transcripts, Beck extracted significant statements, formulated their meanings, and categorized statements into theme clusters.

The findings were then integrated into an exhaustive (performed comprehensively and completely) description of the phenomenon of postpartum panic and validated by two mothers who had participated in the study.

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During the early stage of data analysis, Beck initially identified eight themes.

After further deliberation (planning something carefully and intentionally) she combined two preliminary themes with other themes.

Beck concluded that the following six themes described the essence of the experience of postpartum panic:

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1. The terrifying physical and emotional componeof panic paralyzed women, leaving them feeling totally out of control.

2. During panic attacks, women’s cognitive functioning abruptly diminished; between attacks, women experienced a more insidious decrease in cognitive functioning.

3. During the attacks, women feverishly struggled to maintain their composure (A calm or tranquil state of mind), leading to exhaustion.

4. Because of the terrifying nature of panic, preventing further attacks was paramount in the lives of the women.

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5. As a result of recurring panic attacks, negative changes in women’s lifestyles ensued (To take place subsequently), lowering their self-esteem and leaving them to bear the burden of disappointing both themselves and their families.

6. Mothers were haunted (having or showing excessive or compulsive concern with something) by the prospect (the possibility of future success) that their panic could have residual effects on themselves and their families.

As depicted in these six themes, panic permeated (pass through) all aspects of a mother’s life as she struggled to fulfill her maternal role.

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Analysis of Focus Group Data

Focus group interviews yield rich and complex data that pose special analytic challenges.

Indeed, there is little consensus about the analysis of focusgroup data, despite its use by researchers in several qualitative research traditions.

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Unlike data from individual interviews, focus group interviews are very difficult to transcribe, partly because there are often technical problems. For example, it is difficult to place microphones so that the voices of all group members are picked up with equal clarity, particularly because participants tend to speak at different volumes.

An additional issue is that, because of the group situation, it is inevitable that several participants will speak at once, making it impossible for transcriptionists to discern everything being said.

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A major controversy in the analysis of focus group data is whether the unit of analysis is the group or individual participants.

Some writers (e.g., Morrison-Beedy, Côté-Arsenault, and Feinstein, 2001) maintain that the group is the proper unit of analysis.

Analysis of group-level data involves a scrutiny (A close, careful examination or study) of themes, interactions, and sequences within and between groups.

Others, however (e.g., Carey and Smith, 1994; Kidd and Parshall, 2000), argue that analysis should occur at both the group level and the individual level.

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Those who insist that only group-level analysis is appropriate argue that what individuals say in focus groups cannot be treated as personal disclosures because they are inevitably influenced by the dynamics of the group.

However, even in personal interviews individual responses are shaped by social processes, and analysis of individual-level data (independent of group) is thought by some analysts to add important insights.

Carey and Smith (1994) advocate a third level of analysis—namely, the analysis of individual responses in relation to group context (e.g., is a participant’s view in accord with or in contrast to majority opinion, and how does that get expressed—or suppressed?).

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For those who wish to analyze data from individual participants, it is essential to maintain information about what each person said—a task that is impossible to do if researchers are relying solely on audiotapes. Videotapes, as supplements to audiotapes, are sometimes used to identify who said what in focus group sessions. More frequently, however, researchers have several members of the research team in attendance at the sessions, whose job it is to take detailed field notes about the order of speakers and about significant nonverbal behavior, such as pounding (A heavy blow) or clenching of fists, crying, aggressive body language, and so on. 33

Many focus group researchers agree, regardless of their position on the unit of analysis, on the benefit of certain methods of enhancing data quality and analytic rigor (Strictness or severity, as in temperament, action, or judgment).

First, it is usually recommended that member checking occur in situ (in the original or natural place or site) . That is, moderators develop a summary of major themes or viewpoints in real time, and present that summary to focus group participants at the end of the session for their feedback.

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Especially rich data often emerge from participants’ reactions to those summaries.

Second, postsession debriefings are critical.

Team members who were present during the session meet immediately afterward to discuss issues and themes that arose.

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During these debriefings, which should be tape recorded, team members also share their views about group dynamics, such as coercive (having great power or force or potency or effect) group members, censoring (To examine ) of controversial opinions, individual conformity to group viewpoints, and discrepancies between verbal and nonverbal behavior.

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Transcription quality is especially important in focus group interviews: Emotional content as well as words must be faithfully recorded because participants are responding not only to the questions being posed (To assume or hold a particular position or posture) but also to the experience of being in a group.

Field notes, debriefing notes (report of a mission or task), and verbatim transcripts ideally must be integrated to yield a more comprehensive transcript for analysis.

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Example of integrating focus group data:

Morrison-Beedy and her co-authors (2001) provided several examples of integrating data across sources from their own focus group research.

For example, one verbatim quote was, “It was no big deal.” This was supplemented with data from the field notes that the woman’s eyes were cast downward as she said this, and that the words were delivered sarcastically (ironic ).

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The complete transcript for this entry, which includes researcher interpretation in brackets, was as follows:

“‘It was no big deal.’ (said sarcastically, with eyes looking downward). [It really was a very big deal to her, but others had not acknowledged that.]”

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Because of group dynamics, focus group analysts must be sensitive to both the thematic content of these interviews, and also to how, when, and why themes are developed.

Some of the issues that could be central to focus group analysis are the following:

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Does an issue raised in a focus group constitute a theme or merely a strongly held viewpoint of one or two members?

Do the same issues or themes arise in more than one group?

If there are group differences, why might this be the case—were participants different in background characteristics and experiences, or did group processes affect the discussions?

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Are some issues sufficiently salient (having a quality that thrusts itself into attention) that they are discussed not only in direct response to specific questions posed by the moderator, but also spontaneously emerge at multiple points in the session?

Do group members find certain issues both interesting and important?

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Some focus group analysts, such as Kidd and Parshall (2000), use quantitative methods as adjuncts (Added or connected in a subordinate or auxiliary capacity) to their qualitative analysis.

Using NUD*IST they conduct such analyses as assessing similarities and differences between groups, determining coding frequencies to aid pattern detection, examining codes in relation to participant characteristics, and examining how much individual members contributed.

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They use such methods not so that interpretation can be based on frequencies, but so that they can better understand context and identify issues that require further critical scrutiny and interpretation.

Focus group data are sometimes analyzed according to the procedures of a formal research tradition, such as grounded theory.

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