Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Kathryn KinmondManchester Metropolitan University

k.kinmond@mmu.ac.uk

Objectives

• To situate IPA within the broader context of qualitative research

• To introduce the theoretical underpinnings of IPA• To describe the appropriate research questions,

sampling & data collection methods• To describe analytic process• To offer the opportunity to do some IPA• To offer some suggestions for emphasis in teaching • To offer some suggestions for supervising IPA

projects

IPA within qualitative research

• IPA is a qualitative approach• IPA is a specific qualitative approach……• IPA uses a small purposive sample• IPA analyses themes• IPA engages in ‘in-depth’ study & creates ‘thick data’

IPA as a specific qualitative approach

• So what makes it distinct?

• When should it be used?

IPA as a specific qualitative approach

• “The central objective of IPA is to understand what personal & social experiences mean to the people who experience them” (Shaw, 2010 p178)

Example research question Key features Suitable approach

What are the main experiential features of being abused?

Note the focus on the common structure of ‘abuse’ as an experience.

Phenomenology

How do people who have been abused make sense of it?

Note the focus on personal meaning and sense-making in a particular context with a particular experience.

Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA)

What sorts of story structures do people use to describe abusive events?

Note the focus on how narrative relates to sense-making (e.g. via genre, structure, tone or imagery).

Narrative psychology

What factors influence how people manage abuse?

Note the willingness to develop an explanatory level account (factors, impacts, influences, etc.).

Grounded theory

How do people talk about ‘being abused’ in close relationships?

Note the focus on interaction over and above content, and the caution about inferring anything about anger itself.

Discursive psychology

How is ‘abuse’ constructed in incident reports from Social Services?

Note the willingness to use a range of data sources, and the focus on how things ‘are understood’ according to the conventions of a particular setting.

Foucauldian discourse analysis

IPA as a specific qualitative approach

• An experience of ‘existential import’ • ‘Experience-close’ rather than experience per

se • How the participant makes sense of the

experience • The meaning of the experience to the

participant– (Smith & Larkin, 2009)

An example

• Sandra, mother and carer of two adult sons (one who is married) with major learning disabilities and now, also to her husband following his recent stroke.

• Experiences of ‘existential import’ which Sandra is struggling to make sense of.

A personal example

• Consider a personal experience of ‘existential import’.

• How are you thinking about it, feeling about it, making sense of it?

Assumptions of IPA

• “Human beings are sense making creatures & therefore the accounts [they] provide will reflect their attempts to make sense of what is happening to them”

• But……..

• “Access to experience always depends on what Ps tell us about that experience… The researcher needs to interpret that account in order to understand that experience” (Smith et al., 2009)

Aims of IPA

• Dual Aim - To provide:– an in-depth exploration of people’s lived

experiences– a close examination of how people make sense

of these experiences

Theoretical underpinnings of IPA: Phenomenology

• A philosophical approach to the study of experience

• Concerned with what the experience of being human is like

Key phenomenological philosophers

• Husserl – emphasised ‘going back to the things themselves’; carefully examining the experience as an individual psychological process

• Heidegger – concerned with the ontological question of existence itself & with the practical activities & relationships through which the world appears to us

• Merleau-Ponty – focused on subjectivity & embodiment • Sartre – “existence comes before essence” (1948 p26);

we are always ‘becoming’

Theoretical underpinnings of IPA: Hermeneutics

• The theory of interpretation• Concerned with people as interpreting &

sense-making individuals

Theoretical underpinnings of IPA: Double hermeneutic

• Dual interpretation process

“the participants are tying to make sense of their world; the researcher is trying to make sense of the participants trying to make sense of their world.” (Smith & Osborn, 2003: 51)

Theoretical underpinnings of IPA: Idiography

• Focus on the particular rather than the universal/general

• Relating to the study of the individual who is seen as unique.

• Idiographic studies work at the individual level to make specific statements about those individuals

Basic principles of IPA: a summary

• Inductive – rejects the hypothesis in favour of open-ended questions

• Idiographic – works at the individual level• Assumes agency to the individual• Individuals actively interpret their experiences & their world (in

fact we can’t not interpret)• It is concerned with understanding individuals’ lived experiences

& how they make sense of those experiences• It is data-driven (bottom-up) – prioritises participants’ accounts• Research is a dynamic process – the researcher is active in the

research – (Shaw,2009)

Planning an IPA project: research questions

• Directed towards phenomenological material & focus on people’s understandings of their experiences

• Open, exploratory questions • Focus on significant issues in life:

– Identity, sense of self– Hot cognition – current issues, emotive, dilemmatic– Cool cognition – longer term, reflection across life course

Planning an IPA project: sampling

• Small sample sizes because of the case-by-case, idiographic approach to analysis

• Number of Ps depends on:– Researcher’s commitment to the case study level of analysis– The richness of the individual cases– Decisions about comparison/contrasting cases– The pragmatic restrictions one is working under

• Data collection needs to focus on experience & recognise multiple influences on that experience

Planning an IPA project: research tool

• Need to collect detailed stories, thoughts & feelings……so:

• Semi-structured interviews are most-used• But other methods have been used• Postal questionnaires• Email dialogue• Focus groups• Observations

Planning an IPA project: constructing the questions

• Open, expansive questions to facilitate a detailed account of the experience being investigated.

• Minimum input from interviewer• Start with a question which allows the P to recount a

descriptive episode• Move to more analytical questions later

Example questions (Smith et al., 2009)

• Descriptive – please could you tell me what you do in your job?• Narrative – can you tell me about how you came to get the job?• Structural – what are the stages involved in dispatching orders?• Contrast – what are the main differences between a good & bad

day at work?• Evaluative – how do you feel after a bad day at work?• Circular – what do you think your boss thinks about how you do

your job?• Comparative – how do you think your life would be if yu worked

somewhere else?• Prompts – can you tell me a bit more about that?• Probes – what do you mean by ‘unfair’?

What not to ask……(Smith et al., 2009)

• Over-empathic questions (eg. I can imagine your job is quite boring – is that right?)

• Manipulative questions (eg. You’ve described your job as repetitive. Is it even worse than that?)

• Leading questions (eg. So, I don’t suppose you’d say your job is rewarding?)

• Closed questions (eg. So you’ve been working here for five years then?)

Transcription

• Formatting [line numbers, margins, line-spacing] for workable transcripts;

• Transcribe the whole tape • Transcribe only major prosodic features (e.g.

SIGHS/LAUGHS; interruptions and overlaps; ums and ahhs) - not lengths of pauses etc.

• Anonymise as you go.

Doing the analysis: an iterative & inductive cycle (Smith, 2007)

• stage 1: Identify themes in the first case; list your ‘stream of consciousness’ words, comments and initial ideas in the left hand margin of the transcript.

• stage 2 – In the right hand margin the extracted words, comments and ideas (already listed in the LH margin) should be transformed into emergent theme titles in concise phrases which aim to capture the essential quality of what was found in the text.

• stage 3 – List the emergent themes separately to the transcript and examine them for connections between them and also themes which are not convergent. This Clustering of themes should be checked against the original transcript to ensure that they hold true against what the interview.

• Direct quotes from the transcript should be attached to each theme to ensure that the original meaning of the theme is not lost in the interpretation.

• stage 4 – Compare the emergent themes to see which share commonality or again which contradicted each other. These are then formulated into super-ordinate themes made up of sub-ordinate themes.

• Create a table of master themes – NB: Ensure each theme is represented by data in the transcript

to avoid researcher bias

Theme Clusters – looking for connections

• Continue with other cases• Start with the master themes from case 1 & look for further evidence

in case 2• Be ready for new themes to emerge in case 2• The process is cyclical: go back case 1 to see if they are

represented there also• Be prepared to go over the phases of analysis several times, going

back over transcripts & rethinking theme clusters

Continuing with Other Cases

Writing Up

• This is the final stage of analysis• The aim is to translate your themes into a narrative

account• Deciding which themes to focus on requires you to be

selective• The choice is not purely based on prevalence but also on

the richness of particular passages that highlight the theme & how the theme illuminates other aspects of the account (Shaw, 2009)

Tips for emphasis in teaching

• IPA is about individuals’ experiences• IPA is interpretative –we want participants to reflect on &

interpret their experiences in the interview & we want to interpret them in the analysis

• Interviews are analysed on a case-by-case basis (there may only one case – a case study)

• Doing IPA is a creative process – the active interpretative role of the researcher is valued

• An IPA analysis usually reveals something about participants’ meaning-making processes & how an event or state impacts on identity (Shaw, 2009)

Tips for supervising IPA projects

• Awareness of the time necessary – much longer than a quantitative project

• Guidance & support for student in analysis stage– watch for over-cautious analysis (too descriptive) / over-

interpretative analysis / mis-directed analysis (difficulties with focusing on sense-making).

• Care in managing the word limit - not being overwhelmed; deciding what to cut.

• Use of the first person• Need to achieve some visible level of reflexivity

Useful references

• Forrester, M. (ed) (2010) Doing qualitative research in Psychology. London. Sage.

• Langride, D. (2007). Phenomenological Psychology: theory, research and method. Harlow, Pearson.

• Moran, D (2000) Introduction to Phenomenology. Routledge.• Smith, JA, Flowers, P, Larkin, M (2009) Interpretative

phenomenological analysis: Theory, Method, Research. London: Sage.

• Smith, J.A. & Eatough, V. (2006) Interpretative phenomenological analysis. In Breakwell, G.M, Hammond, S., Fife-Schaw, C., & Smith, J.A. (Eds.) Research Methods in Psychology. 3rd Edition. London: Sage.

• Smith, J.A. & Osborn, M. (2003) Interpretative phenomenological analysis. In J.A. Smith (Ed) Qualitative Psychology: a practical guide to research methods. London: Sage.