Week 11 Study Guide

DE300 Investigating psychology 3

Week 11 Study Guide

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Week 11 Study Guide

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Contents
 1. Introduction
 Week 11 study tasks

 Week 11 learning outcomes

 2. Why focus on experience?

 Why do we love who we love?

 Familial love

 3. Methods and skills

 Semi-structured interviews

 Phenomenological research and analysis

 When do we use it?

 How do we use it?

 How do we write it up?

 4. Independent project

 References

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1. Introduction

View description - Uncaptioned Figure

Welcome to Week 11. Last week you learned about key analytic
concepts that psychologists often use when following the
phenomenological approach: bracketing and dimensions of the
lifeworld. You saw how these might be applied to the psychological
study of jealousy.

This week you will return to the phenomenological approach by

looking in more detail at how we can use phenomenology to
understand the topics of emotion and interpersonal relationships in
psychology.

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Your Methods and skills training in this week’s session will focus
on extending and developing your skills in completing a
phenomenological analysis.

Darren Langdridge

View description - Darren Langdridge

You should begin this week’s study by listening to the audio by

Darren Langdridge, who is the author of Chapter 8 of your module
textbook, ‘Why focus on experience? Introducing
phenomenological psychology’. This chapter provides some
general reflections on the phenomenological approach.

Audio content is not available in this format.

Welcome to Week 11
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View transcript - Welcome to Week 11

Week 11 study tasks

Below, you will find a list of the study tasks for this week. These
include calculations of how long it should take you to complete
each task, which should help you when planning your study. You
should set aside 12 hours for the core study tasks. You have 16
hours of study time this week, so the remaining time should be
used for your independent project.

 Read Chapter 8, ‘Why focus on experience?

Introducing phenomenological psychology’. (5 hours)
 Complete an activity applying phenomenological ideas
to the topic of relationships. (45 minutes)
 Complete an activity that explores the meaning and
experience of ‘family’. (30 minutes)

Methods and skills

 Complete an activity identifying key features of
interview schedule development. (45 minutes)
 Practise wording interview questions. (30 minutes)
 Practise developing an interview schedule. (30
minutes)
 Identify ethical issues in research scenarios. (45
minutes)

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 Listen to an audio of Helen Owton describing her use

of the phenomenological approach in her research.
(10 minutes)
 Listen to an audio of Linda Findlay explaining how to
complete a phenomenological analysis. (30 minutes)
 Complete a bracketing activity. (30 minutes)
 Practise coding. (45 minutes)
 Complete an activity on applying phenomenological
concepts to data. (45 minutes)

Independent project
If you are carrying out a phenomenological study, there will be
opportunities for you to extend your knowledge of the concepts
that frame this approach. (45 minutes)

Week 11 learning outcomes

After you have completed this week’s study you should be able to:

 outline the process of conducting individual interviews

 identify and evaluate ethical issues in qualitative
research
 review the principles of phenomenology
 describe the key steps in conducting a
phenomenological research study.

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2. Why focus on experience?

Now read Book 1, Chapter 8, ‘Why focus on experience?
Introducing phenomenological psychology’ by Darren Langdridge.

Chapter 8 examines phenomenology as an approach that allows

the exploration of subjective experience. Drawing on research on
personal relationships and emotion, the author discusses how
phenomenology can be used to gain insight into everyday life as it
is lived.

When you have finished reading the chapter, return to this study
guide to work through the rest of this week's tasks and activities.

Why do we love who we love?

In Chapter 8 you learned about how attraction and intimate
relationships have been typically researched in social psychology.
You were introduced to the work of Finkel and Eastwick (2015),
who suggested that the human motivation for forming relationships
is ‘instrumentality’.

‘Instrumentality’ means that we choose relationships that achieve

our personal goals and meet our individual needs. For example, a
person who has a strong desire to feel needed by others may seek
out a partner who fulfils this need.

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Reflection
Take a moment to think about Finkel and Eastwick’s understanding
of relationships. Does it ring true for you? Can you think of
examples that seem to support or challenge the notion of
instrumentality? You might like to jot down your thoughts in the text
box below.

Provide your answer...

You will now watch a video of an interview with a couple – Kirsty

and Steve – who were interviewed as part of the Enduring Love?
research project (conducted by Janet Fink and Jacqui Gabb of The
Open University). You may have encountered this research in your
DE200 studies and you might find it helpful to revisit the DE200
interview with Janet and Jacqui to refresh your memory.

Start by watching the whole video below (which is about six

minutes long) without interruption and try to follow the main points
of discussion.

Video content is not available in this format.

Enduring love

View transcript - Enduring love

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Activity 1: Enduring love

Allow about 45 minutes

Read through the questions below. Then watch the video again
and try to answer each question.

1. How does the notion of instrumentality compare with how love

and intimacy are talked about in the video?

Provide your answer...

View discussion - Part

2. In Chapter 8 you read about how the experimental study of

instrumentality might be limited in its ability to explain why some
people form the relationships they do. Consider this claim in
relation to how the couple talk about the basis of the relationship.
Are you convinced by it?

Provide your answer...

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View discussion - Part

3. Spend a few minutes thinking about the contribution a

phenomenological perspective can make to psychological
understandings of love and relationships.

Provide your answer...

View discussion - Part

Familial love

View description - Uncaptioned Figure

Having spent some time thinking about intimate relationships and

attraction, you will now move on to consider familial relationships.
It is fair to say that, in western cultures, a high degree of
importance is placed on the family unit and relationships. In Activity

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2 you will be using phenomenological concepts to critically engage

with the notion of ‘family’ and experiences of parenting.

Reflection
Let’s begin by thinking about the meaning of the word ‘family’.
What do you automatically think of when you think of ‘family’? Who
is in the family? What relationships is it comprised of? You might
also find it helpful to think about what representations of family you
have recently come across in your daily life; this may include
posters, television programmes, magazines or books. Write down
your thoughts in the text box below.

Provide your answer...

What you may have noticed, from thinking about representations of

family that you come across in daily life, is that dominant or typical
portrayals of family comprise a mother, father and child (or
children). The mother and father are generally represented as
‘together’ in the sense that they are in a relationship. You may
have seen other representations involving extended families (e.g.
grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins), but many depictions of
family still centre on the mother–father–child unit.

There are other ways of being a family (e.g., single parents,

divorced parents, or gay or lesbian or transgendered parents), but
these are generally excluded from dominant representations. For
example, few adverts featuring the family deviate from mother–
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father–child. This dominant portrayal of ‘family’ has implications for

how other different family units are made sense of, or experienced,
by individuals in those families. For example, the marginalised
status of families that are different from
mother–father–child/children, coupled with negative connotations
of specific family units (e.g. prejudicial treatment of single parents,
gay, lesbian or transgendered parents), may present specific
challenges in the experience of being a family.

In the video below (which is about four minutes long) Darren

Langdridge discusses his phenomenological research on gay
fatherhood. Start by watching it in full without any interruption.

Video content is not available in this format.

The traditional family?

View transcript - The traditional family?

Activity 2: Families
Allow about 30 minutes

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Now read the questions below and then watch the video again with
them in mind.

1. In Chapter 8 you read about the importance of bracketing in

phenomenological research. You may remember that bracketing
involves putting aside one’s own preconceptions when studying
the experiences of others. What issues does Darren Langdridge
discuss in the video that might need to be bracketed when
researching young gay men’s experiences of parenthood?

Provide your answer...

View discussion - Part

2. Imagine that you are the researcher in the study described in the
video. The interviewee talks about some difficult experiences. Are
there any issues raised that you might find difficult to bracket off?
Take a moment to consider why this may be so.

Provide your answer...

View discussion - Part

3. Now imagine yourself in the position of the interviewee. This

might involve, for example, thinking about what it is like to consider
gay parenthood in a world that privileges the heterosexual
traditional family unit. Now consider the issues raised in the video
again and attempt to bracket your preconceptions about the topic.

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How did you find it? Was the process of bracketing easy or
difficult?

Provide your answer...

View discussion - Part

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3. Methods and skills

View description - Uncaptioned Figure

As explained in last week’s Methods and skills materials, there are

three data collection methods that are most commonly used in
qualitative research: individual interviews, focus groups and
existing data.

This week you will learn how to develop materials to conduct

individual interviews. This is a key method for collecting data on
the subjective experiences of individual research participants. It’s
therefore very important that you consider this method if you are
undertaking a phenomenological approach in your independent
project.

Last week you were introduced to the initial processes involved in

carrying out a phenomenological analysis of data. This week will
build on your knowledge of the phenomenological approach by
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focusing on some of the key practical issues related to designing a

phenomenological study. You will work through the phases
involved in completing data analysis using this approach, looking
at how to develop an interview schedule and word your questions,
how to decide on a suitable location and recording equipment, and
how to actually conduct the interview.

As with any data collection method, you will need to consider

ethical issues. As you will be thinking in more depth about how to
use qualitative methods to collect data in this session, it is good
time to revisit the British Psychological Society’s ethical principles.
You will build on your knowledge of ethics from Block 1 to consider
specific ethical issues that may arise in qualitative projects.

Semi-structured interviews
As you saw in Week 9, semi-structured interviewing is a common
way of collecting data for qualitative research projects, particularly
phenomenological studies. Semi-structured interviews involve a
small set of open-ended questions, known as the ‘interview
schedule’. Semi-structured interviews should be a conversation
with your research participant, and the questions should be used to
help elicit relevant lines of discussion, rather than being rigidly
adhered to. If some questions on the schedule aren’t asked, it
doesn’t necessarily matter, as often issues are covered in the flow
of relaxed discussion.

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The interview schedule is intended to guide the conversation by

allowing:

 the interviewer and interviewee to stay on topic – a

question on the schedule can be asked if the
conversation is digressing on to topics that aren’t
relevant to the study
 the interviewer to be flexible about how to ask
questions – questions do not have to be asked in any
particular order
 the interviewer to ask questions that are not on the
interview schedule, and to follow up interesting and
relevant lines of conversation
 the interviewer some freedom to introduce issues that
are not covered on the interview schedule but are
relevant to the research topic.

An example interview schedule

The interview schedule provided in this section is for a
phenomenological research project. If you are using an interview
method for a discursive project, use this example to identify the
structure for an interview schedule and then consider the guidance
in Book 2, Chapter 11. This will help you to consider appropriate
questions for a discursive project.

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It is important when interviewing for a phenomenological research

project to focus on concrete descriptions of the participant’s
experience. You will want your participant to give as much detail as
they can about their experience and what it means to them, and to
avoid abstract discussions about the topic. You may find it helpful
to give your participant a copy of the interview schedule prior to the
interview so they have some time to think about the issues you
would like to cover. This is generally good practice for all
qualitative projects.

Activity 3: An example interview schedule

Allow about 45 minutes

This activity explores the key features of an interview schedule for

the research question ‘How is participation in a street
protest experienced?’. For each of the three interview
questions, click ‘Reveal comment’ to find out more information
about it.

It is useful to have some prompts that will remind you to encourage

the participant to give more detail. Such prompts can also help to
focus your concentration. Obviously, which prompts you use will
depend on the participant’s response to answering the question.
For each of these three questions, have a go at identifying some of
the prompts you might use.

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Example question 1: I would like to explore your experience

of participating in street protests. Can you tell me about an
occasion when you were involved in a street protest?

View comment - Part

What prompts could you use to encourage further information

about question 1?

Provide your answer...

View discussion - Part

Example question 2: What did it mean to you to be involved

in this street protest?

View comment - Part

What prompts could you use to support the ‘flow’ of the interview at
this point?

Provide your answer...

View discussion - Part

Example question 3: How did you feel about participating in

this street protest?

View comment - Part

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You could use prompts at this point to enable the participant to

make comparisons or contrasts between different experiences.
Can you think of any examples?

Provide your answer...

View discussion - Part

Wording your questions

You have come across advice for writing clear questions for
questionnaires in DE200. This generic advice is also useful for
wording the interview schedule.

 Make sure that your interview questions

are relevant to the research question. For
example, if you are interested in experiences, then
your questions need to focus on that, rather than, for
example, on discussion of social representations of
the issue.
 Keep questions simple, short and
straightforward. Interviewees should be able to
easily understand and answer every question you ask.
Ensure your language caters for all levels of literacy.
While some words or terms may be familiar to you, try
to remember that they may not be familiar to everyone
else. Make sure you replace unusual words, technical
or psychological jargon and acronyms with more
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accessible language. Terms such as ‘elucidate’,

‘amnesia’ and ‘TMA’ may confuse respondents;
instead, opt for ‘explain’, ‘memory loss’ and ‘tutor-
marked assessment’. Where possible, use language
that the interviewees themselves use.
 Don’t use double-barrelled questions. Make
sure you are asking only one question at a time,
otherwise the meaning of responses can be lost. One
way to do this is by avoiding questions that include an
‘and’ or an ‘or’. For example, if asking the question
‘Do you feel welcomed by your tutor and the other
students at your tutorials?’, how would respondents
answer if they felt differently about the tutor and the
students? If they give an answer, how would you
know which part of the question they were referring
to? If you find you have covered two issues in a single
question, try to reword it into two separate questions.
In this example, you could ask: ‘Do you feel welcomed
by you tutor?’ and ‘Do you feel welcomed by the other
students at your tutorials?’.
 Avoid asking unnecessarily sensitive or
intrusive questions. You do not want to upset or
offend your participants, so, wherever possible, avoid
asking for embarrassing information or information
that would cause the person to feel defensive.

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 Avoid leading questions. Leading questions are

worded to include an assumption or opinion; as such,
they tend to guide the interviewee to a particular
‘correct’ answer. An example of a leading question is
‘What were your fears about starting the course?’ This
assumes that students are fearful when beginning a
new course, which might not be the case for all
students. To make this question non-leading, it could
be reworded as ‘How did you feel about starting the
course?’.

Now that you are familiar with the advice for wording interview
questions, you are ready to put your knowledge into practice. In
Activity 4 you will assess the phrasing of a series of interview
questions.

Activity 4: Wording of interview questions

Allow about 30 minutes

These interview questions were designed with the following

research question in mind: ‘How is participation in a
student protest experienced?’.

Consider whether the wording of each question reflects a particular

problem or strength associated with writing interview questions.

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1. ‘Can you tell me how you became involved in the student

protest?’ This question is an example of:

(a) a clear and simple interview question

(b) an unnecessarily sensitive or intrusive question

(c) a line of conversation relevant to the research question

(d) a double-barrelled question

(e) both (a) and (c)

View answer - Part

2. ‘How did you feel about student and anti-austerity protests in the
UK?’ This question is an example of:

(a) a double-barrelled question

(b) a leading question

(c) a line of conversation relevant to the research question

(d) a complicated or confusing question

(e) both (a) and (c).

View answer - Part

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3. ‘In your opinion has the student protest helped to bolster the
student agenda?’ This question is an example of:

(a) a double-barrelled question

(b) a leading question

(c) a question that’s irrelevant to the research question

(d) a complex question

(e) a sensitive question

View answer - Part

4. ‘Did you engage in any illegal activity during the protest?’ This
question is an example of:

(a) a clear and simple interview question

(b) a double-barrelled question

(c) a line of conversation relevant to the research question

(d) an unnecessarily sensitive/intrusive question

(e) both (a) and (d)

View answer - Part

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5. ‘How did you experience the NCAFC campaign?’ This question

is an example of:

(a) a clear and simple interview question

(b) a complicated/confusing question

(c) a line of conversation relevant to the research question

(d) an unnecessarily sensitive/intrusive question

(e) both (c) and (d)

View answer - Part

Developing your interview schedule

Now that you are familiar with good practice in wording interview
questions, and are aware of some of the pitfalls, you are in a good
position to write an interview schedule.

Activity 5: Developing your interview schedule

Allow about 30 minutes

If you are conducting a phenomenological study for your

independent project, you may find it useful to start drafting your
interview questions based on your research question.

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If you are not conducting a phenomenological study, you may

choose to write at least five questions that relate to one of the
following research questions.

1. ‘What issues do mothers identify as important to the

experience of having their first child?’
2. ‘What is the experience of falling in love like for young
men?’

You might find it helpful to refer back to the section on wording

questions to make sure that you avoid potential problems.

Provide your answer...

Deciding on a location
There are a number of important issues to consider when deciding
on a location for your interviews. The primary consideration is that
of personal safety: you must not interview strangers in remote
locations, so you will need to consider carefully the most
appropriate venue – if you are unsure about this, you should
contact your tutor for advice. You will also need to find a venue
that is comfortable, where you can avoid interruptions (e.g.
telephones ringing) and in which both you and your participant can
feel relaxed. You will need to consider the geographical location of
the venue in relation to its convenience for you and your
participant, as well as issues of accessibility where, for example,
your participant has restricted mobility.
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Interview equipment

View description - Uncaptioned Figure

You will need to decide how you are going to record the interview.
You may consider using a digital recorder or a mobile device (such
as a tablet computer or smartphone) to record your interview. It is
advisable to use two methods of recording, in case one should one
fail.

The interview conversation

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View description - Uncaptioned Figure

When conducting the interview, it may be helpful for you to keep in

mind that the research interview is a conversation that has a
specific purpose. It should have a more relaxed feel than, for
example, a job interview.

Your interview schedule will help guide how you proceed with the
conversation but, as was mentioned earlier, don’t be afraid to
deviate from it. The interviewee will almost certainly introduce
interesting lines of discussion that you have not thought about, and
you can use prompts to explore issues further. You may find the
following tips helpful for facilitating the interview.

 Take a ‘naïve’ approach by asking the participant for

clarifications and examples of the experiences they
raise.
 Avoid interruptions and use body language, such as
nodding, or ‘continuers’ (e.g. ‘mmm’ or ‘yes’) to show
you are listening.

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 Be comfortable with silence, as participants will often

need time to consider their responses.

If you become, or your participant appears to become,

uncomfortable or distressed during the interview, it is important to
attend to this. You will need to decide whether it is appropriate to
take time out by switching off the recorder or stopping the
interview. You could ask your participant what they wish to do, but
ultimately you will have to use your judgement in deciding what is
most appropriate.

In some rare circumstances, you may also need to consider

suggesting sources of additional support for your participant (e.g.
from a GP or another appropriate professional), and where issues
of participant safety have been disclosed, you may need to take
further action. In these circumstances you should contact your
tutor.

Ethical issues for interviews

The BPS publishes a Code of Human Research Ethics, which
psychologists work with to ensure that research is conducted in a
fair and ethical manner. Before starting this section, take some
time to read through the code so that you are ready to consider the
ethical issues that might arise in qualitative research.

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This is very important. You will need to ensure that your

independent project addresses potential ethical issues, and have a
clear plan of how to follow the advice in the code about informed
consent, rights to withdraw, debriefing, protection of participants,
data protection and anonymity.

You may also find it helpful to revisit the DE200 material on

ethical issues in psychology.

Activity 6: Identifying ethical concerns for

conducting interviews
Allow about 45 minutes

You will now put your knowledge of ethical issues into practice by
considering an example research scenario for a project that is
characteristic of the type required for DE300.

Read through the scenario carefully and consider whether it

addresses six of the key issues described in the BPS’s Code of
Human Research Ethics: recruitment of participants, informed
consent, protection from harm and participants’ right to
refuse/withdraw, debriefing, data security, and researcher safety.

Research scenario
A researcher wants to interview teenagers of different ages about
their experiences of participating in street protests, and particularly
wants to identify teenagers who were involved in fighting or
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violence during a protest. She plans to approach a number of

teenagers at her son’s school to invite them to participate in the
research. The researcher wants to visit the teenagers in their
homes to conduct interviews about their experience of participating
in street protests – including asking them questions about their
friends’ participation in the protests. She hopes that during the
interviews the participants will identify and give the contact details
of their teenage friends, so she can then approach them at the
school.

The researcher will briefly explain the aims of the research project
and ask the teenagers to sign a consent form. She is planning to
record the interview on her smartphone (which is not protected by
a PIN) and store the recordings on it, and to download copies of
the audio files on to her computer. (The downloading may take
place a day or two after the interviews.) If there isn’t time to
conduct a debriefing at the end of the interview, the researcher will
agree to telephone the participant a few days later to do this.

If you feel any of the six ethical issues has been addressed,
describe how it has met the requirements outlined in the BPS’s
Code of Human Research Ethics. If you feel any of the six
ethical issues has not been adequately addressed, make notes on
why you believe that to be the case.

1. Recruitment of participants

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Provide your answer...

View answer - Part

2. Informed consent

Provide your answer...

View answer - Part

3. Protection from harm and participants’ right to refuse/withdraw

Provide your answer...

View answer - Part

4. Debriefing of participants

Provide your answer...

View answer - Part

5. Data security

Provide your answer...

View answer - Part

6. Researcher safety

Provide your answer...

View answer - Part

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This scenario is fairly extreme in terms of the number and types of

ethical issues it raises. However, it highlights a range of issues,
particularly those associated with the difficulty of trying to imagine
unforeseen consequences. It is important to try to anticipate
consequences that are likely to raise ethical concerns when
planning a research project.

Phenomenological research and

analysis
Last week, you were introduced to the core concepts of
phenomenological analysis and focused on identifying four
dimensions that comprise participants’ lifeworlds: sociality,
spatiality, temporality and embodiment. This week, you will build
on your knowledge of phenomenological analysis by exploring
thematic patterns in data, and practise your skills in the
identification of lifeworld dimensions. You will also look at how
phenomenology has been used to explore topics in psychology.

When do we use it?

The following audio clip explores some of the practical and
intellectual considerations in designing a phenomenological study.
In the clip, Helen Owton discusses the background to her study on
female boxers’ experiences of their body.

Audio content is not available in this format.

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Helen Owton: Phenomenological analysis

View transcript - Helen Owton: Phenomenological analysis

How do we use it?

Now that you have seen some examples of phenomenological
studies, you can start to think about how you can analyse data
using phenomenological analysis. Before you get down to the nuts
and bolts of applying phenomenological concepts to data, you
must first prepare your data for analysis. Since phenomenological
studies tend to use audio-recorded interviews, it is important to first
transcribe the data in order to be able to analyse it.

You may remember from DE200 that transcription is the process of

turning audio-recorded data into a verbatim written document. This
means that transcription is a necessary step if you have collected
interview or focus group discussion data and will involve, in the first
instance, listening to the audio recording a number of times and
writing or typing what you hear word for word. You will also need to
make some decisions about what transcription notation you need
to include to capture enough information to make sense of your
data and perform an analysis.

You may find it helpful to revisit the DE200 material on

transcriptions, particularly the examples of notation symbols, to
refresh your memory.

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Remember that there are no hard-and-fast rules about which

transcription notation symbols you should include and you should
refer to Chapter 11 for more information about how to make this
decision for your independent project.

When transcribing, you also need to think about readability.

Spoken language is actually quite messy, as you will see when you
come to type out your transcript. Your audience (the people who
will eventually read your finished project) will often find it helpful if
you include some punctuation in your transcript to make it easier to
read.

Kindred spirits: an example transcription

Now let’s look at the data you will be working with for the rest of
this section: ‘Account 21’. The data is an anoymised interview
extract from a study by Linda Finlay and Virginia Eatough. Finlay
and Eatough (2012) explored people’s experiences of developing a
relationship with, or feeling a connection to, someone who they
feel is a kindred spirit. Take a few moments to read through the
extract.

Account 21
IW and I met at The Open University Summer School in 1984. Our
very first meeting was at a ‘Breaking the ice party’ organised by the
tutors where we were thrown together when we were asked to find

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all the other people in the room with the same zodiac sign and
introduce ourselves. As soon as IW spoke I instantly felt that I
would like him and would love to work with him at Summer School.

The next day, when choosing our groups, I asked IW to join the
group of which I was a part and as he did so, despite having
already started to set up his own group, I felt that he must have
made some kind of connection with me too. We had an instant
rapport – a similar sense of humour, liking the same people, a
shared interest in the course we were studying – yet at the same
time feeding off our totally different skills within the group and
being intellectually challenged and stimulated by these differences.

By that evening this sense of having found a kindred spirit was

also becoming a physical attraction, leading to a first kiss and a
walk back to my room. IW was a little ‘insistent’, leading me to
throw him out and spend the night wondering how I could have got
him so wrong.

The next morning I walked into the lecture room and saw IW sitting
there. We looked at each other and somehow, in that moment of
connection, I just knew that everything was right and that I had
found not only a kindred spirit but also a soul mate. An hour later I
was falling in love with him as we were paired together in a room
working on a selective listening task. Somehow the intensity of the

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concentration required for the task helped charge the atmosphere

in the room. Our connection was almost palpable.

We spent the next few days talking to each other constantly as well
as working together, snatching any moments alone that we could.
We spoke about our lives, our feelings, our problems, our past –
everything – as if we had a need to know the whole of each other.
We knew we had found the very closest of kindred spirit – a soul
mate based on liking, loving, understanding and knowledge of
each other’s very being. Twenty four years later we still feel the
same.

Finlay and Eatough (2012)

You may also wish to listen to the audio recording of the extract.

Audio content is not available in this format.

Account 21

Now that you have read the transcript, what did you notice about
the transcription? You may have been surprised by the lack of
detailed use of transcription notation. The transcription employed
here focuses on punctuation rather than trying to record in written
form exactly how the content was said (for example, rising and
falling intonation, timed pauses, elongated speech). This is
because, in this example, using detailed transcription notation was
not necessary for the analysis. More detail in this instance would
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not have helped the researchers to answer their research question.

Given this, it is perfectly acceptable to focus on ensuring
readability of the transcript.

It’s important to remember that this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule for

phenomenological analysis. For example, when listening to your
audio recordings, you may notice that word emphasis and
paralinguistic information such as laughter and untimed pauses are
important to understanding the meaning of what the participant is
trying to convey. If this is the case, then it would be important to
include symbols that represent these features of your data in all of
your transcripts where relevant.

Doing phenomenological analysis

Once your data is in written form, you can begin the process of
doing a phenomenological analysis. In this section, you will watch
a video in which Dr Linda Finlay will talk you through how to apply
phenomenological concepts to identify patterns in data. Before you
start watching the video, you will find it helpful to first read and
familiarise yourself with the transcript of the data that features in
this video (‘Account 10’). Again, it is taken from the research by
Finlay and Eatough (2012) about kindred spirits.

Account 10

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It’s hard for me to separate out my experience of connecting with a

kindred spirit and my experience of falling in love/lust at first sight. I
can think of two occasions when this happened particularly. With
both men I made an extraordinary and very quick connection. Did I
fall in love? Perhaps. Was there a kindred spirit connection? Yes,
definitely.

One of these kindred spirits I met at work. I had gone to this

meeting in London expecting a rather boring meeting. I was going
to it as my team’s representative and I didn’t know what I was
walking into or who the other members of the group were.
However, as soon as I walked into the room I saw him. He stood
out from the other strangers. Then as he began talking I was
hooked. He had such a wonderful gentle warm empathic presence.
I felt my heart flip when he smiled at me. To be fair he was
probably smiling at everyone that way. But it felt special as if to me
alone; as if my soul was being warmed.

The way our organisations are structured I knew we were unlikely

to meet again – or if we did it would only be once a year or
something. I regretted that but accepted it. However, a few months
later I attended another meeting and, somewhat to my surprise,
was pleased to discover him there. My early impressions of him
were confirmed. He was simply amazing – personality, wit,
intelligence, caring. He seemed to tick all the boxes. I wasn’t
wanting an affair (well I was wanting but an affair would be
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unthinkable given my circumstances) with him but I did want to

make a connection and get to know him better.

That night when I was home I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
That is when I came up with the idea of the ‘xxxx inter-agency
project’. I emailed the group (including the man) that next day and
that was the beginning of ‘xxxx’. He and I were included in the
working party and we’ve stayed on in our respective roles.

The project has now been running successfully for three years. It
was an inspired idea. The fact that it came out of a selfish desire to
have more contact with this man remains my secret. I usually get
credited for the project. If only they knew! My love for this man
remains a secret too. But we get to see each other regularly and
work together and I’m mostly content with that. My instincts have
proved to be sound. Somehow I feel good when he is in the room
with me. Somehow I know that he understands my perspective and
that he shares it. (I say I know but that isn’t strictly true. I don’t
know for sure but I feel it instinctively.)

We keep our distance and we’re rarely personal with each other.
But somehow I know he is a soulmate, a kindred spirit, and we
were destined to find each other. Sometimes I regret we haven’t
got closer. I also have to admit to having a few fantasies at night.
Then I’m relieved as I suspect it would turn our worlds upside

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down. So we keep a distance. I would really like to know if he feels

the same. Or perhaps I’ve just imagined this connection.

Finlay and Eatough (2012)

In her video, Linda Finlay mentions the process of identifying

themes, which is key to phenomenological analysis. Thematic
analysis was covered in DE100 and DE200 and you might find it
helpful to return to the DE200 material now to refresh your
memory. Once you have done so, go ahead and watch the video
tutorial by Linda Finlay, which is approximately 11 minutes long.

Video content is not available in this format.

Linda Finlay: video tutorial on phenomenological analysis

View transcript - Linda Finlay: video tutorial on

phenomenological analysis

You will now go on to practise the various stages of

phenomenological analysis that Linda described: bracketing,
coding, and developing themes. For this analysis, your research
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question is: ‘How is the connection with a kindred

spirit defined, understood and experienced?’. You will
need to bear this question in mind as you move through the steps
of the analysis.

Bracketing
Bracketing, as you learned last week, is the process of setting
aside your own preconceptions to enable you to try to look at the
topic from your participant’s perspective. In her video tutorial, Linda
Finlay explained that bracketing is the first step in doing
phenomenological analysis. It is followed by, and linked to, coding
the data, which will allow you to look for themes across
participants’ interviews.

To begin, reread Account 21 as many times as you need to feel

familiar with the content.

Account 21
IW and I met at The Open University Summer School in 1984. Our
very first meeting was at a ‘Breaking the ice party’ organised by the
tutors where we were thrown together when we were asked to find
all the other people in the room with the same zodiac sign and
introduce ourselves. As soon as IW spoke I instantly felt that I
would like him and would love to work with him at Summer School.

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The next day, when choosing our groups, I asked IW to join the
group of which I was a part and as he did so, despite having
already started to set up his own group, I felt that he must have
made some kind of connection with me too. We had an instant
rapport – a similar sense of humour, liking the same people, a
shared interest in the course we were studying – yet at the same
time feeding off our totally different skills within the group and
being intellectually challenged and stimulated by these differences.

By that evening this sense of having found a kindred spirit was

also becoming a physical attraction, leading to a first kiss and a
walk back to my room. IW was a little ‘insistent’, leading me to
throw him out and spend the night wondering how I could have got
him so wrong.

The next morning I walked into the lecture room and saw IW sitting
there. We looked at each other and somehow, in that moment of
connection, I just knew that everything was right and that I had
found not only a kindred spirit but also a soul mate. An hour later I
was falling in love with him as we were paired together in a room
working on a selective listening task. Somehow the intensity of the
concentration required for the task helped charge the atmosphere
in the room. Our connection was almost palpable.

We spent the next few days talking to each other constantly as well
as working together, snatching any moments alone that we could.

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We spoke about our lives, our feelings, our problems, our past –
everything – as if we had a need to know the whole of each other.
We knew we had found the very closest of kindred spirit – a soul
mate based on liking, loving, understanding and knowledge of
each other’s very being. Twenty four years later we still feel the
same.

Finlay and Eatough (2012)

Once you have familiarised yourself with the data, move on to

Activity 7.

Activity 7: Practising bracketing and immersing

yourself in the data
Allow about 30 minutes

1. To begin the process of bracketing, write down your immediate

thoughts, ideas, responses to the extract or feelings you have. It
might be what you think of this person or the people she mentions
in her account or how the topic is described and understood. You
need to be as honest as possible. This process will help you
identify any preconceptions (which might be positive or negative)
that might be preventing you from fully immersing yourself in the
participant’s perspective.

Provide your answer...

View discussion - Part

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2. Once you have engaged with the process of bracketing, you

then are in a position to consider the following questions:

 How does the account make you feel?

 What is the basic story?
 What are the key points?

Remember that Linda Finlay talked about ‘dwelling’ on the data

when trying to answer questions such as these.

Provide your answer...

View discussion - Part

Coding
At this point, you are now in a position to develop codes for the
data. If you haven’t done so already, revisit the DE200 material on
thematic analysis to refresh your memory of coding.

The first step in coding is to jot down initial codes, which are your
initial ideas and summaries of the data. It is best if you go through
the data line by line in the first instance to make sure you don’t
miss anything important. Then go back through the initial codes
and tighten up the wording so that your more developed codes
succinctly express the meaning of a segment of the data.

You might find it helpful to keep in mind the following questions

when you are developing your codes:
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Helpful questions for developing codes

 What? What is this about? What phenomena are
mentioned? Which aspects of the phenomena are
mentioned (or not mentioned)?
 Who? Who appears in the text? What actors are
involved? What roles do they play?
 How? How were the actions achieved? What
strategies were used to achieve the goal?
 When? When did the situation described happen?
How long did it go on for?
 Where? Where did it happen? What locations or
places are mentioned?
 Why? What reasons are given for the situation
/phenomenon taking place? What intentions are
described here? What is the purpose?

As you code, keep reminding yourself of the process of bracketing.

You might find it helpful to revisit the codes once you have a draft
and critically appraise whether the codes reflect any of your
personal preconceptions. If you find that the codes reflect your
preconceptions, it is necessary to spend time thinking about
whether this code reflects a pattern in the data or reflects your own
thoughts on an issue. If you think a code or codes might reflect
your ideas rather than a pattern that’s grounded in the data then it
is good practice to think about other ways a segment of data could
be understood or described. It is also worth talking to your tutor, as
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a fresh perspective can be valuable when trying to move past

personal preconceptions. This is a useful process to ensure that
codes are grounded in the actual data.

Activity 8: Practising coding

Allow about 45 minutes

Have a go at developing some codes for Account 21. Then reveal

the discussion to compare your codes with the ones identified by
the module team.

Provide your answer...

View discussion - Activity 8: Practising coding

Developing themes
It is common to have more than one interview to code. Try to code
each interview transcript with fresh eyes rather than assuming all
the codes you’ve identified in one transcript will appear in
subsequent ones. It’s likely there will be similarities across the
codes in your transcripts but it’s best not to assume this so that
you don’t miss new information.

Once you’ve coded all your data, you can now go back through
your developed codes and look for commonalities between codes.
This will allow you to identify shared themes across your interview
transcripts. If you are using phenomenological analysis in your

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project, you are recommended to read Chapters 8 and 13 for an

explanation of how to identify themes. You can also return to the
DE200 material, which takes you through the steps from coding
to theme identification.

Applying phenomenological concepts

A phenomenological analysis builds on the steps of thematic
analysis by applying phenomenological concepts to interpret the
data.

Last week you practised identifying dimensions of the lifeworld.

The lifeworld can be thought of as the subjective meanings of the
world that is inhabited by the participant. It is shaped by the
participant’s perspective as well as the sociocultural contexts that
the participant moves through in the course of their daily life. You
might remember that there are four main dimensions:

1. Sociality. This refers to people and relationships in

the data. To identify aspects of this dimension, it is
helpful to make notes about all the people mentioned
in the data, what their relationship is with each other,
how they feel about each other, and the key events
they are involved in.
2. Spatiality. This dimension is about spaces, places
and objects in the extract that are relevant to the
experience described.
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3. Temporality. This requires an analysis of the

importance of time to the experience, which may
include consideration of the sequencing of events
described.
4. Embodiment. This refers to how participants
experience their physical bodies and how this might
play into their wider experiences.

Once you have identified themes across your data, you can then
go through your data extracts and start identifying dimensions of
lifeworld in the data that are relevant to the research question.

Activity 9: Identifying dimensions of the

lifeworld
Allow about 45 minutes

In this activity, you will practise identifying dimensions of the

lifeworld. Read through Account 21 again carefully and try to
identify examples from the data extract that relate to each
dimension of the lifeworld. You might find it useful to jot down key
ideas that relate to a dimension (for example, in the case of
sociality, write down the list of people who are mentioned) before
attempting to articulate the relationship between features of that
dimension.

Sociality

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Provide your answer...

View discussion - Part

Spatiality

Provide your answer...

View discussion - Part

Temporality

Provide your answer...

View discussion - Part

Embodiment

Provide your answer...

View discussion - Part

Don’t worry if you didn’t get all of the possibilities for each
dimension. It takes some time to be able to spot what is crucial
from the data. You might find it helpful to read through the
suggested answers in the discussions above and then return to the
transcript data to see how these data examples can be interpreted
as dimensions of the lifeworld.

How do we write it up?

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Before you approach the write-up of a phenomenological analysis,

it is a good idea to return to Week 9 and remind yourself of the
generic template and instructions for writing up qualitative
reports. Bear in mind that there is no single ‘right’ way to write up
a phenomenological analysis and this is important to remember
when you come to read journal articles in which the write-up of the
analysis may be different from other articles you read. That said,
you should follow the general principles outlined in Week 9 for
writing up qualitative research.

You have seen that phenomenological analysis organises the data

thematically and so it often makes sense to use each theme as a
subheading to organise your writing. You can then discuss
dimensions of the lifeworld as they become relevant to each
theme. Remember that the material you cover in this section must
relate specifically to the research question that you have asked. It
is very important to focus closely on your question to make sure
you are including the analysis of data that is relevant to answering
it.

Let’s take a look at one way you could go about organising your
analysis section:

 Introduce your analysis. Here you give the reader a

clear idea of how the analysis is structured and what
the themes you identified were called.

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 Use theme titles as subheadings. You can then

discuss each theme in turn and present and interpret
relevant data.
 Within each theme or subsection, you can discuss
dimensions of the lifeworld. There isn’t necessarily a
need to signpost this discussion with the use of further
subheadings (e.g. using ‘sociality’ and so on as
subheadings) as this might disrupt the flow of your
writing. An alternative is to build in a discussion of
these features as you talk about specific examples of
your data.

Your tutor will be able to help you think about good ways to
structure your analysis section. Also, you will find it helpful to look
at journal articles to get ideas for how to organise this section. For
example, you may want to read the following article to see how the
analysis section was written up:

Finlay, L. and Eatough, V. (2012) ‘Understanding the

experience of discovering a kindred spirit connection’,
Phenomenology and Practice, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 69–88.

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4. Independent project
If you are using individual interviews to collect data, you may find it
helpful to revisit the DE100 audio recording of Jean McAvoy and
Sandra Roper discussing issues raised by the collection of
interview data in their research and to consider how such
issues may play out in your own research. You should also use the
audio clip to stimulate your thinking about other possible
considerations that may arise during data collection from your
participants.

This week you listened to Helen Owton discussing her

phenomenological research on female boxers’ embodied
experiences. You may find it helpful to read the full paper to gain a
further insight into how phenomenological research is designed
and written up:

 Owton, H. (2015) ‘Reinventing the body-self:

intense, gendered and heightened sensorial
experiences of women’s boxing embodiment’,
in Channon, A. and Matthews, C. (eds) Global
Perspectives on Women in Combat Sport:
Women Warriors Around the World,
Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 221–236.

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If you are using phenomenology in your independent research, you

may find the following papers useful for designing your project and
analysing your data:

 Finlay, L. (2014) ‘Engaging phenomenological

analysis’, Qualitative Research in Psychology,
vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 121–41.
 Finlay, L. (2013) ‘Unfolding the
phenomenological research process: iterative
stages of “seeing afresh”’, Journal of
Humanistic Psychology, vol. 53, no. 2, pp. 172–
201.

In Chapter 8 you were introduced to a number of topics that have

been investigated using a phenomenological approach. Although
some of these topics may not be easy for you to research in your
own independent study, they may act as a stimulus for you in
relation to other related topics. For example, you may be interested
in people’s experience of motherhood, fatherhood or emotions
such as happiness.

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References
British Psychological Society (BPS) (2014) Code of Human
Research Ethics, Leicester, BPS [Online]. Available at
https://www.bps.org.uk/sites/beta.bps.org.uk/files/Policy%20-
%20Files/Code%20of%20Human%20Research%20Ethics
%20(2014).pdf (Accessed 13 January 2016).

Finkel, E.J. and Eastwick, P.W. (2015) ‘Interpersonal attraction: in

search of a theoretical Rosetta Stone’, in Simpson, J.A. and
Dovidio, J.F. (eds) APA Handbook of Personality and Social
Psychology, vol. 3, Washington DC, American Psychological
Association, pp. 179–210.

Finlay, L. and Eatough, V. (2012) ‘Understanding the experience of

discovering a kindred spirit connection’, Phenomenology and
Practice, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 69–88.

Owton, H. (2015) ‘Reinventing the body-self: intense, gendered

and heightened sensorial experiences of women’s boxing
embodiment’, in Channon, A. and Matthews, C. (eds) Global
Perspectives on Women in Combat Sport: Women Warriors
Around the World, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 221–
236.

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Activity 1: Enduring love

Part
Discussion
As you saw in Chapter 8, instrumentality is concerned with
individual desire to seek out relationships that fulfil personal goals.
In the video, descriptions of love in this relationship are not solely
focused on individual needs and goals. Steve and Kirsty comment
on ‘love at first sight’, which is described as a ‘strange’ experience
that they have only had with each other (which makes it ‘special’).
They also discuss shared, rather than individual, commitments and
goals that contribute to the ongoing, enduring quality of their
experience of love in the relationship. Interestingly, some personal
preferences and aims, such as Steve wanting to keep their home
tidy, are described as a source of difference in their individual
aims. However, these individual goals are displaced in favour what
is seen to be more important: a shared goal to maintain their
relationship.

Back to - Part

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Activity 1: Enduring love

Part
Discussion
Some features of the relationship discussed by Steve and Kirsty
could be interpreted as evidence of instrumentality. For example,
when Kirsty described Steve’s caring qualities, the examples she
described centre on how his actions fulfil her needs (he’ll do
anything for her, and buys her flowers). Before we commit to this
interpretation, we might want to think about this in a little more
depth. If we take these comments in isolation we could interpret
Steve and Kirsty’s experience of love as based on exchange of
actions or material items that fulfil their needs. However, if we use
the concept of bracketing and set aside assumptions of
instrumentality, we could interpret Kirsty’s comments as describing
actions that are evidence of long-term commitment in a loving
relationship. Kirsty’s descriptions, then, are not just about her
personal goals, but, rather, a more complex view of what love in
this relationship is about: ongoing expressions of love and
commitment in a long-term relationship.

Back to - Part

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Activity 1: Enduring love

Part
Discussion
In this activity, you have focused on the subjective experience of
love in a long-term relationship. Using this perspective, you may
have noticed that descriptions of relationship experiences are not
necessarily straightforward. For example, the initial experience of
love and attraction isn’t something that Kirsty or Steve can easily
articulate – they just know it’s special because they haven’t
experienced it before. This points to the difficulties in objectively
defining and explaining subjective experience. If we move away
from trying to objectively understand subjective phenomena, we
move towards engaging with subjective experience in its own right,
which shows up the complexities of relationships.

If we use decontextualised notions of instrumentality to explain

what people want in relationships, we may miss how these needs
and desires become understood and negotiated as shared in an
understanding of relationships as joint, committed and enduring.
This is not to say that Kirsty and Steve’s understanding of love is
the only way it can be understood. The phenomenological
approach can flag patterns across subjective experience to
highlight the range of perspectives and understandings participants
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draw on to make sense of their particular experience of love and

relationships.

Back to - Part

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Activity 2: Families
Part
Discussion
Darren Langdridge mentions at the beginning of the video that,
based on his experiences, he assumed he would not have his own
children. His thoughts also extended to his relationships with his
parents regarding his ability to give them grandchildren. When
researching the topic from a phenomenological approach, this is a
preconception that he would have needed to bracket. He could not
assume that his participants had similar views or shared that
experience of initial considerations about parenthood.

Back to - Part

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Activity 2: Families
Part
Discussion
How did you experience listening to James’s early experiences of
relationships? What were your responses to his decision and his
female partner’s decision regarding the pregnancy? It is important
to consider your own responses in order to explore what your
preconceptions might be, where they come from, and how you
might go about thinking about them differently. As you saw last
week, this is the starting point of the process of bracketing.

Back to - Part

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Activity 2: Families
Part
Discussion
To fully engage with the process of bracketing, it is sometimes
helpful to put yourself in the shoes of the participant. This
facilitates the process of moving to an agnostic position, after
which the world can be seen from another perspective. This is
crucial for engaging with the experience of others in
phenomenological research.

Back to - Part

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Activity 3: An example interview

schedule
Part
Comment
This is an example of a ‘descriptive’ question, which can ease the
participant into the interview because it asks for biographical
information. It is also useful to start with this question as it requires
the participant to recall a concrete experience that you can then
explore further with them.

Back to - Part

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Activity 3: An example interview

schedule
Part
Discussion
Some prompts could be:

 What happened to you during the protest?

 Can you give me an example of that?
 Could you describe that in more detail?

Aim for a 15-minute discussion.

Acknowledge and thank the participant for sharing their experience

so far, then move on to the next question.

Back to - Part

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Activity 3: An example interview

schedule
Part
Comment
This is an example of a question that encourages the participant to
explore how they make sense of their experiences.

Back to - Part

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Activity 3: An example interview

schedule
Part
Discussion
Some prompts could be:

 Why was it important to you to participate in the

protest?
 Can you describe that in more detail?
 Why do you have this view?

Aim for a 15-minute discussion.

Acknowledge and thank the participant for sharing what being

involved in a street protest meant for them, then move on to the
next question.

Back to - Part

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Activity 3: An example interview

schedule
Part
Comment
This is an example of a question that encourages the participant to
explore the emotional components of an experience in more detail.

Back to - Part

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Activity 3: An example interview

schedule
Part
Discussion
Some prompts could be:

 How were your feelings about being in the street

protest similar to being in other group situations?
 How were your feelings about being in the street
protest different from being in other group situations?

Aim for a 15-minute discussion.

Back to - Part

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Activity 4: Wording of interview

questions
Part
Answer
Right:

(e) both (a) and (c)

Wrong:

(a) a clear and simple interview question

(b) an unnecessarily sensitive or intrusive question

(c) a line of conversation relevant to the research question

(d) a double-barrelled question

The answer is (e). This question is worded in a clear and concise

way. It is asking about the interviewee’s experience of the student
protest, which makes it directly relevant to the research question.

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Activity 4: Wording of interview

questions
Part
Answer
Right:

(e) both (a) and (c).

Wrong:

(a) a double-barrelled question

(b) a leading question

(c) a line of conversation relevant to the research question

(d) a complicated or confusing question

The answer is (e). The question is double barrelled because it is

asking about two distinct issues: student protests and the anti-
austerity protests. The research question is not asking about anti-
austerity protests, so this line of conversation is not directly
relevant to it, whereas the issue of student protests is relevant.

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Activity 4: Wording of interview

questions
Part
Answer
Right:

(b) a leading question

Wrong:

(a) a double-barrelled question

(c) a question that’s irrelevant to the research question

(d) a complex question

(e) a sensitive question

The answer is (b). This question can be considered to be leading

because it invites the interviewee to agree or not agree with the
idea that the protest helped the agenda. To reword the question to
be non-leading, it could be rephrased as ‘In what ways, if any, has
the student protest had an impact on the student agenda?’

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Activity 4: Wording of interview

questions
Part
Answer
Right:

(d) an unnecessarily sensitive/intrusive question

Wrong:

(a) a clear and simple interview question

(b) a double-barrelled question

(c) a line of conversation relevant to the research question

(e) both (a) and (d)

The answer is (d). This question is both unnecessarily sensitive

and intrusive, and is likely to make the interviewee feel defensive.

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Activity 4: Wording of interview

questions
Part
Answer
Right:

(b) a complicated/confusing question

Wrong:

(a) a clear and simple interview question

(c) a line of conversation relevant to the research question

(d) an unnecessarily sensitive/intrusive question

(e) both (c) and (d)

The answer is (b). The use of acronyms might be confusing if the

interviewee is not familiar with them.

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Activity 6: Identifying ethical

concerns for conducting interviews
Part
Answer
It is inappropriate to recruit children under the age of 18 years for a
DE300 research project. All participants must be over 18
years and must not be in a vulnerable category. This
means participants must be adults and able to understand the
aims of the project; they must also be unlikely to suffer harm from
participating in the project. It is important to consider potential risks
to psychological well-being from the point of view of the participant.
Here, prospective participants would be asked to talk about actions
that may have been illegal and have caused them trauma.
Additionally, given these circumstances it would be inappropriate
to ask participants to name people who could then be approached
by the researcher.

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Activity 6: Identifying ethical

concerns for conducting interviews
Part
Answer
Research conducted with children under the age of 16 years
requires parental consent. However, as noted above, children
under the age of 18 years must not be recruited to
a DE300 project.

In the research scenario outlined above, participants are not being

given full information about the project, including a participant
information sheet, as well as an opportunity to ask questions about
the project and what participating in an interview would involve.

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Activity 6: Identifying ethical

concerns for conducting interviews
Part
Answer
As the researcher is a parent, prospective participants may feel
uncomfortable about refusing to participate in the research project.
It is important for researchers to consider and address power
relations between themselves and prospective participants, which
may make it difficult or impossible for participants to feel they can
refuse to participate, answer questions or stop the interview.
Asking participants to recall information about experiences which
may have been particularly traumatic, involved them engaging in
illegal activities, or asking for disclosure of sensitive information
about their friends, is likely to cause distress to the participants.
Under these circumstances, requesting personal information, such
as the names and contact details of people who have not
consented to take part in the research, is inappropriate.

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Activity 6: Identifying ethical

concerns for conducting interviews
Part
Answer
It is important that participants are debriefed immediately after the
interview so that any issues regarding unforeseen harm,
discomfort or misconceptions about the research can be
addressed by the researcher.

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Activity 6: Identifying ethical

concerns for conducting interviews
Part
Answer
The researcher’s plans to store data on a mobile device that is not
protected with a PIN raises serious issues regarding data security.
If the smartphone were borrowed or stolen it is likely that someone
other than the researcher or research supervisor would have
access to the data. Additionally, saving multiple copies of audio
files on different computers raises issues regarding data security
as copies may be forgotten about, and thus not deleted after the
research has been completed.

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Activity 6: Identifying ethical

concerns for conducting interviews
Part
Answer
It is usually inappropriate for researchers to interview children in
their homes unless very specific safeguards are put in place. For a
DE300 project, it is recommended that interviews are arranged in a
public place, particularly when interviewing strangers. Additionally,
interviewing participants about sensitive topics that may cause
them emotional distress is likely to be stressful for the researcher
too and require additional skills for appropriately referring the
participant for further guidance and support. Asking participants to
recall acts of violence at a protest may result in the disclosure of a
criminal offence, which could represent a conflict of interest for the
researcher to manage.

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Activity 7: Practising bracketing and

immersing yourself in the data
Part
Discussion
How did you find the process of bracketing? Sometimes it can be
experienced as not very revealing, but it is worth sticking with it
because sometimes we are not always directly aware of our
preconceptions until we are forced to pay attention to them. At
times, this process can be very revealing about ourselves and how
we think about the world. This can be exciting and sometimes a
little overwhelming. Please do contact your tutor should you want
to talk through your experience of this process. It’s important to
remember that we all have preconceptions because we each take
on a perspective to understand our social world. Becoming more
explicitly aware of these aspects of ourselves can be personally
illuminating as well as paving the way for us to become fully
immersed as psychological researchers in the process of analysis.

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Activity 7: Practising bracketing and

immersing yourself in the data
Part
Discussion
The aim of these three prompting questions is to help you fully
immerse yourself in the data and become very familiar with the
content as well as understanding the experiences described from
the perspective of the participant. Here is how the module team
responded to the three questions. Don’t worry if your answers are
worded differently or if you picked up on some other issues that
perhaps the module team did not. However, if your answers are
substantially different it would be worth working through the extract
again with the module team’s answers in mind to make sure that
your work is on the right lines.

The module team was struck by the romance of this story and the
power of the connection described. There was a clear moment of
disappointment when it looked like the participant had misread or
misunderstood this connection (when the participant describes IW
as ‘insistent’) but, generally, the account sweeps you up in this
powerful description of instant connection and romantic love. (The
personal response you’ve had to the account might be very

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different to the module team’s so please don’t worry if your answer

is different.)

The basic story is that the participant met her kindred spirit (IW) at
a summer school. The participant felt an ‘instant’ connection with
IW despite them never having met before. They seized
opportunities to work with each other and there were indications
that this sense of connection was mutual. They found they had a
number of similar interests and preferences and this initial
connection quickly progressed into feelings of ‘physical attraction’.
They kissed after an evening together but this was followed by
conflict over physical intimacy, leading the participant to question
whether she had misjudged her feelings of discovering a kindred
spirit. This conflict was resolved the following day when she saw
IW again and found the feelings of connection were still as
powerful as the day before. The participant ‘just knew that
everything’ with IW was right and that she had discovered her soul
mate, which she says is the very closest kind of kindred spirit – ‘a
soul mate based on liking, loving, understanding and knowledge of
each other’s very being’. This feeling of connection continues and
has spanned 24 years.

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Activity 8: Practising coding

Discussion
Here are the codes developed by the module team. Don’t
worry if the wording of these suggested codes is slightly different
or if you have picked up on slightly different issues. However, if
your codes are substantially different, you are advised to work
through the data again to see how the module team have arrived
at the codes that they did.

Compare these codes with yours to see if your codes are

grounded in the data and are a reasonable summary of the data
(and not the product of preconception or over-/under-
interpretation). If you are unclear about code development, it would
be a good idea to talk it through with your tutor.

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Activity 9: Identifying dimensions of

the lifeworld
Part
Discussion
Relevant people: tutors, other students, the participant, IW

The main characters are the participant and IW and their

relationship is characterised by an instant connection and a desire
or pull to be with each other. The tutors are only mentioned in
terms of their role in introducing the pair. Relationships with the
other students are not really described. Other students are only
mentioned in terms of having to forgo working arrangements (IW
left his study group) to maximise time spent with each other.

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Activity 9: Identifying dimensions of

the lifeworld
Part
Discussion
Relevant places: the summer school, the participant’s room (or
bedroom), the lecture room

The context for this developing romance is a summer school in

which their role is students. Her room becomes relevant as a
space of conflict – IW is implicitly described as pushing for physical
intimacy, which she resists by throwing him out. The room
becomes a place of reflection on her initial feelings of connection
and of self-doubt in which she questions ‘how could I have got him
so wrong?’. The lecture room the following day becomes a space
of connection where doubt is displaced by her feelings that this
relationship with IW was ‘right’.

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Activity 9: Identifying dimensions of

the lifeworld
Part
Discussion
Time sequence: first meeting, the next day, that evening, the next
morning, next few days, 24 years later

Across this time sequence, the participant described the

development of the connection between herself and IW. The
relatively short period of the building of this intimate relationship
underscores the intensity of the budding romance. The first
meeting is an instant connection, followed by the next day where
the pair seek each other out. The intimate connection and
attraction builds throughout the day leading to an evening together
and a first kiss. This is followed by conflict over progressing
physical intimacy, which is resolved the next day on seeing each
other and sensing the continued connection. This sense of
intimacy and unison continues to span their lives to the date of the
interview.

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Activity 9: Identifying dimensions of

the lifeworld
Part
Discussion
Bodies become relevant to the growing physical attraction, which is
expressed in a first kiss. Bodies also become relevant to the
conflict experienced ‘that evening’ when IW pushes for further
physical intimacy, which is resisted by the participant. The bodies
described here are heterosexual and resonate with how masculine
and feminine bodies and related notions of physical intimacy are
positioned in the current sociocultural context. One predominant
understanding of men focuses on their drive for physical
gratification and women on resisting physical intimacy, preferring
instead love and romance. This is not to say that this accurately
describes how men and women necessarily feel or conduct their
physical lives but it is a representation that is familiar to those living
in this current sociocultural context.

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Uncaptioned Figure
Description
This colour photo shows a bonded pair of two, small, exotic birds, brightly coloured
with green, yellow and orange feathers.

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Darren Langdridge
Description
This is a black-and-white photo of Chapter 8 author Darren Langdridge. Darren is a
white male with a shaved head. He is wearing a checked shirt.

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Uncaptioned Figure
Description
This photo shows three people standing on a beach. The people are silhouetted by the
light. On the left stands a male adult; he is holding hands with a young child. The
child is also holding hands with the third person who is another adult male wearing a
hat.

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Uncaptioned Figure
Description
This colour cartoon shows a seated female on the left talking animatedly and a seated
male on the right taking notes on a clipboard.

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Uncaptioned Figure
Description
This is a montage of two colour photos. On the left a hand is holding a digital
recorder. On the right is a smartphone.

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Uncaptioned Figure
Description
This photograph shows an interview in progress.

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Welcome to Week 11
Transcript
DARREN LANGDRIDGE
Hello, welcome to Week 11. My name is Darren Langdridge, and I wrote the chapter
for this week and some of the VLE materials. I’m Professor of Psychology and
Sexuality at the OU, with a particular interest in phenomenological methods. This
week you will learn more about phenomenological psychology in the book chapter,
and detail about the practicalities of how to carry out a qualitative interview on the
VLE. You’ll also learn more about relationships and emotions through discussion of a
variety of studies on these topics. This will take you through studies concerned with
understanding the meeting of a kindred spirit and the formation of new relationships,
through to the death of a partner and relationship loss.
Phenomenological psychology is concerned first and foremost with describing the
‘lived experience’ of phenomena, whether that is the experience of learning to drive
or falling in love. That may seem terribly simple – too simple perhaps – but it is
deceptively difficult to move beyond our everyday ways of seeing the world, so that
we can stay with ‘the things in their appearing’ – that is, to stay with the world as it
appears to us, as we experience and live it day to day. The first stage in the
development of any new science is to describe the objects of study in rich detail and
that is the focus of phenomenology. If we rush too quickly to causal explanations and
grand theories there is a danger that we lose sight of the object of study itself and risk
making it even more obscure.
All phenomenological methods derive from the philosophy of Edmund Husserl and
share a number of key features that are described in the book chapter this week. The
first is the use of the phenomenological reduction and epoché – a process sometimes
known as ‘bracketing’. This process is designed to help us elaborate a description by
giving us a method in which we can put aside our preconceptions and biases. The
second key feature is the focus on a person’s lifeworld. We use the concept of the
lifeworld to stress the way that every person’s experience is embedded within
particular historical, social and cultural context. A key element in a phenomenological
analysis involves a consideration of what might be called the ‘dimensions of the
lifeworld’ – things such as temporality, spatiality, sociality and embodiment. These
dimensions of existence are common for all people, though obviously experienced in
radically different ways in different cultural contexts. As such, they can be used as a
useful tool to help us interrogate our data in a phenomenological analysis.
Many phenomenological research studies will use data derived from interviews. This
is because interviews provide us with the opportunity to explore the detail of
someone’s lived experience in a relatively controlled one-to-one setting. The
phenomenological analysis of data is best achieved when there are concrete examples
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of experience to be analysed. So the aim in qualitative interviews used for

phenomenological analysis is to gather as much detail as possible on the actual
experiences that people have had.
If you wish to investigate the experience of falling in love, for instance, the focus in
the interview should be on someone’s experience of falling in love, rather than their
thoughts or opinions about the topic. This takes practice, but the practical activities
this week will help you develop this important skill. You will also encounter activities
designed to help you think about research ethics and deepen your knowledge and
skills in the phenomenological analysis of data.
So, there is a lot to learn this week, but I hope you will find it a really enjoyable and
valuable experience.

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Enduring love
Transcript
STEVE
Hi, I’m Steve. I’ve been with Kirsty for the last four years. We’ve got a little boy
called Alfie. And we’re in love.
KIRSTY
Hi, my name’s Kirsty, and I’ve been with Steve for four years. And we have a little
boy called Alfie. And this is our enduring love.
I worked in a factory, just local, actually. And I’d been there two years?
STEVE
Roughly, yeah.
KIRSTY
Yeah, before Steve came down there. And, just, as soon as I seen him, that was it, for
me.
STEVE
She was the only one I got shy around. Which is really sweet.
KIRSTY
For me, I thought it was that he didn’t like me, because he was flirting with everyone
else. And when it come to me, and there was just ... he wasn’t, like, trying anything,
or, like, trying to speak to me.
STEVE
Yeah, it was simply because a friend of hers told me that she fancied me. So I just
started chatting to her more. And I asked you out, right, pretty much, didn’t I?
KIRSTY
Yeah.
STEVE
And we went to the pub that evening.
KIRSTY
Yeah.
STEVE
Been together since.
[The one]
Love at first sight definitely happens. It did for us.
KIRSTY
Yeah.
STEVE
Do you know what? It was just special. It was different, this time. Just, all the
different people you could have been out with in the past, you just think this one

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person ... You feel, I’ve got no interest in anyone else. It was a really strange feeling.
You agree with that?
KIRSTY
Yes, that’s pretty much the same, really, for me. Just took my breath away, really.
Steve is the only person that I can say I’ve been with this good.
He’s caring, he’ll do anything for me. Every day, really, he can do something that’ll
make me think ‘Oh, my god’. You know, he’ll come home and he’ll bring flowers,
and things like that. He’s just so caring, and he’s just lovely.
STEVE
I know it’s really sad, but I’ll always kiss you before I leave the house, won’t I?
KIRSTY
Yeah.
STEVE
And tell you I love you.
KIRSTY
Yeah. Yeah, every morning.
STEVE
Yeah, it’s just part of the routine now.
KIRSTY
And every evening.
[Forever?]
STEVE
Our relationship’s long term.
KIRSTY
Yeah.
STEVE
Definitely long term.
KIRSTY
We’re in it for the long run.
STEVE
We’ve been together nearly four years.
KIRSTY
Yeah, in October, ain’t it?
STEVE
Eleventh.
KIRSTY
Yeah, 11th of October. We’ve had a child. We’ve committed to each other by having
a house together. So we are in it for the long run. We wouldn’t have done these things
if it was just nothing that meant nothing to us, would it?
STEVE
No, exactly. Working on number two, soon, hopefully, so ...
[BOTH CHUCKLE]
Oh, we definitely want to get married, at some point, yeah.
KIRSTY
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I’ve always been one of these ones that want a big wedding. A woman does want her
day to be big and the focus of attention. But for a while, I’ve just wanted to be
married to him. I wouldn’t care if there was anybody there, just me, him and Alfie.
Because I just want to be able to be his wife. I really do.
[Alfie]
STEVE
Well, the first time I held Alfie, as soon as I heard that first piping cry, when he first
come out, I just burst into tears. My legs went all weak.
KIRSTY
I just couldn’t get over how emotional he was. And looking at him, and I thought ‘Oh,
my god’, well I’ve definitely make the best decision to have a child with you, because
it was just writ all over his face, and the love, wasn’t it? It was just ... It was an
amazing feeling. I can just see it now.
STEVE
He was a really special little boy.
KIRSTY
We was close, anyway. But he has definitely brought us closer together.
STEVE
God, yeah.
KIRSTY
Because, obviously, he’s something that we’ve got that we’ve both made.
[The niggles]
Kids do put pressure on a relationship, and so does work. Because, obviously we both
do shifts. I mean, we can go three days where we’re both on different shifts and the
only time we see each other is come bedtime.
We work in jobs where it’s not physically draining, it’s emotionally. And you do get
stressed. So sometimes you need to come home and you need to get that ... you need
to vent out.
Sometimes Steve won’t argue with me, because he knows I want an argument. And I
can go for hours, wanting to argue. And I’m very stubborn.
STEVE
And eventually we’ll just come to it, just have a little row, and that’ll be it.
KIRSTY
Yeah.
STEVE
We do have little things that annoy each other. I mean, you can be obsessive,
compulsive with your bloody tidying up.
KIRSTY
Clutter, clutter. If I’ve had a day off, and I get my housework sorted out, the first thing
Steve will come home and do when he comes home is he’ll bring shopping in, and
he’ll plonk it on the table, or he’ll kick his shoes off, and he don’t put them tidy.
They’re just kicked off. And I’m like ‘Put them tidy, you can see that I’ve put all mine
tidy.’
[Together]
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STEVE
We’ve got two sofas in the living room, but we always sit on the same one.
KIRSTY
But we’re always on this one.
STEVE
It’s nice, that way.
KIRSTY
Unless I’m on ... I’m on an early shift, and you’ve got a day off and you want to stay
up.
STEVE
Yeah.
KIRSTY
Because I can’t go to bed without Steve. I just can’t seem to switch off and sleep. I
know ... I know I’m safe when he’s around.
STEVE
Sex is definitely a big part. It’s getting the chance, with Alfie around, mind. Having
quite high sex drives, isn’t it–
KIRSTY
Well, you have, yeah.
[BOTH LAUGH]
[Love]
When he comes home from work and he walks down that path, my heart goes ... my
heart beats faster, because he’s coming home from work. And I’ve only got to look
into his eyes, and I know I’m love with him. And anybody else: I just don’t care about
anybody else.
STEVE
Love is us being that complete set of the puzzle. If one part’s missing, it doesn’t look
right, it’s not right, doesn’t work correctly. So you’ve got to be with the whole. In this
case, we’re a set of three.
KIRSTY
Yeah.
STEVE
Hopefully a set of four, soon.
KIRSTY
Definitely.

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The traditional family?

Transcript
NARRATOR
Phenomenological research sets out to describe the particularity of people’s
experiences.
DARREN LANGDRIDGE
My own research has been mostly concerned with understanding the lived experience
of sexual identities. A particularly interesting study that I conducted was concerned
with understanding the expectations of young gay men for parenthood.
As a gay man coming out, some years ago, I recall automatically assuming that I’d not
be able to have children of my own, or give my parents grandchildren. I was
interested in exploring whether there was a new story about parenthood and the
possibility of this for young gay men. This led me to conduct a study designed to
investigate the hopes and fears of young gay men about becoming parents themselves.
We set out, basically, to conduct kind of fairly in-depth interviews with sort of 20
young gay men who didn’t have children but had something to say about the topic.
DARREN LANGDRIDGE
[Dramatisation] Hi, James.
We recruited from a number of different sources. We had fliers that we’d put around
various venues, directly approached youth groups in the area, university groups, and
other people that we knew. We basically were trying to find kind of as many young
gay men as we could who were willing to volunteer that didn’t already have children,
through whatever means, and that had some wish to take part and talk about the topic.
DARREN LANGDRIDGE
[Dramatisation] And you had some very definite ideas about–
It meant that sometimes we were interviewing them in my office at the university, or
we’d go to their homes. Whatever was most appropriate for them and they felt most
comfortable with.
[Dramatisation]
DARREN LANGRIDGE
Through here?
INTERVIEWEE
Yep. Would you like a drink or anything?
DARREN LANGDRIDGE
Yeah, a cup of tea would be great, thanks.
INTERVIEWEE
No problem.
DARREN LANGDRIDGE

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I wonder if we could begin by just talking a little bit about your expectations for
parenthood, and, in particular, I’m interested in whether you’ve ever imagined
becoming a parent at some point in the future.
INTERVIEWEE
I have, certainly. Five years ago, before I came out as a gay man, I was in a
relationship with a woman, and, I got her pregnant. I realised, I think, at that point,
that I wasn’t in the relationship I wanted to be in, to actually bring the child up.
It was a mutual decision, but we decided to get rid of the baby, in the end, and it was
the right decision. I don’t think we could have supported it as I would have wanted to,
and I think she had the same opinion as me, really.
I would like children in the future. But obviously now, being a gay man, it would be
with a different partner, and it would definitely be, I think, in a relationship that I
would want to have that child.
DARREN LANGDRIDGE
What we heard from these people were a variety of themes around the way in which
having a child was a way of connecting them in with their own families – their own
biological families, in particular; a way of continuing the generation – the family
name – through providing parents with grandchildren, linking themselves into the
family structure in a way that often heterosexual siblings did.
And have you thought about the implications of your decision for the child,
themselves?
INTERVIEWEE
My generation’s a lot more accepting of gay marriage, gay people having babies. And
I would hope that in the future, perhaps 10 years down the line, that it’s developed
even more so that it’s become less of an issue.
DARREN LANGDRIDGE
And I wonder if you’ve thought about how your friends or family might respond to
you and this decision.
INTERVIEWEE
I think my friends would be very accepting. My parents would like grandchildren,
definitely. And wanting children, myself, I think ... I think would be a good thing for
them, and it would be a good thing for me.
[End of dramatisation]
DARREN LANGDRIDGE
There was often an emphasis on quite traditional notions of families: of needing to be
in a couple, before having children, was actually quite a common theme, and wanting
to be kind of a fairly traditional family, where the child had lots of love and affection
and support. And these things were kind of clearly identified as common themes for
the men involved.

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Helen Owton: Phenomenological

analysis
Transcript
LISA LAZARD
Hello. I’m Lisa Lazard, and I’m here today talking with Helen Owton, the author of
the chapter ‘Reinventing the self’, which was published in 2015. The chapter is based
on a study about women’s embodied experiences of boxing.
So, Helen, could I start by asking you just to summarise the study.
HELEN OWTON
The study’s on exploring women’s experiences of boxing, and I took an auto-
ethnographic approach to the study. So I immersed myself in a boxing club, where I
aimed to become a fully-fledged member, and I took an approach … auto-
ethnography is the focus of a study of cultures, or subcultures, and in this particular
subculture it was boxing.
LISA LAZARD
So auto-ethnography is the process of embedding yourself within a culture that
perhaps is a bit unfamiliar to you?
HELEN OWTON
That’s right. I had had experiences of combat sports before, but it was boxing that I
hadn’t done before. And I was interested in boxing because it was a new sport that
had been allowed into London 2012 and I wanted to find out what women’s
experiences were in the clubs, and how they were being received, how many more
women were taking up the sport, because there was all this hype around women doing
more boxing. So I went along with the aim to find out what those experiences were
like, and by doing that I immersed myself in the field as a boxer to train alongside
other women. And what I found was there weren’t that many other women in boxing
gyms I went to. I think I was quite well received because of the hype at London 2012.
And I did it for about one or two years, and kept those field notes going – what those
experiences were like – so I kept field notes of various interactions, experiences – as
much as I possibly could – and I trained two to three times a week.
LISA LAZARD
How did you decide what you were going to do with those field notes?
HELEN OWTON
Well, it was really a process of collecting as much field notes as I possibly can, and
then once you start collecting data that’s when you’re analysis starts. So you’re
always starting the analysis as soon as you enter the field, so to speak. So I’m really
well placed to know the data because I’m collecting it, and I’m writing it, and I’m
experiencing it. But what the challenge is is to then separate yourself from that data
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and take more of an objective approach to find out how you can write that up, how
you can analyse that, what kind of analysis would suit the approach that I’ve taken,
what I’m finding in the research, and there was also other calls for a more
phenomenological approach to understanding women’s boxing as well. Various other
people, such as (Lois) Wacquant, Allen-Collinson, are all suggesting that this is a very
inductive, well-grounded analysis to take forward and use on women’s boxing.
LISA LAZARD
So at the beginning did you know that you were going to be using phenomenology,
because it sounds like it perhaps was a bit more of a process that merged as you
collected your data?
HELEN OWTON
Yeah, I think that when you start a research project you start it with open mind,
depending on what you find in the research. But I do take a phenomenological
approach to many studies that I’ve undertaken before. And it was just about making
sure that this was aligned with what I was finding and it allowed for a more sensuous
exploration of women’s experience – you know, the very fleshy, sweaty experiences
of women’s boxing that has previously not been given any attention to.
LISA LAZARD
So when you say sensuous, do you mean um the kind of sensory aspects of that
experience?
HELEN OWTON
Yeah, the sensorial dimensions. So where we talk about how we understand the senses
– hearing, feeling, smells, you know – and how that all shapes our cultures, and our
understandings, and our experiences. So, for example in a male boxing gym you can
walk in and it smells of a male boxing gym, and that is very much sometimes around
how we understand the culture of that masculinist boxing gym. And I wondered, as a
woman, coming into that environment, how that would be and how that would feel,
and how I would feel.
LISA LAZARD
So we’ve talked a little bit about the methods that you’ve used. Could I maybe just
take a step back and ask how you formulated the research question and at what point
it became more concrete?
HELEN OWTON
Yeah, my research question was ‘What is the lived experiences of women boxers, and
how boxing could necessitate the invention of the sensuous self?’
LISA LAZARD
Did you formulate that question at the beginning of the process, before you collected
your data, or is it something that shifted during the process of data collection?
HELEN OWTON
Yeah, initially it was more open and it was just about the lived experiences of women
boxers, and then it became more apparent that it was important to add that extra bit
about necessitating the reinvention of the self.
LISA LAZARD
So research questions develop–
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HELEN OWTON
Yes–
LISA LAZARD
–with the process?
HELEN OWTON
–it was much more of a process, definitely. It did become shaped by it as you become
immersed in the project.
LISA LAZARD
What were the ethical issues in your research?
HELEN OWTON
I think boxing is a dangerous sport, and as a researcher I was engaging in something
that could put myself in danger. And sometimes I did experience some aggressive
reactions from men that came into the group who hadn’t perhaps boxed with women
before, and responded more aggressively, and sometimes that was dangerous. I wrote
about that, of course. It was mainly the confidentiality: making sure that as you
develop relationships you also develop loyalty; so does that loyalty stop you from
writing certain things about various participants?
LISA LAZARD
Did you take any measures to check that your data was anonymised to make it
confidential?
HELEN OWTON
When I wrote the chapter I made sure that I’d sent it to a couple of people – the main
people that were mentioned in the chapter – to make sure that their identities couldn’t
be … They didn’t recognise themselves in the data. So that was really important.
LISA LAZARD
And I can I also just ask you a little bit about your analysis. What were your main
findings, if you like?
HELEN OWTON
I think the main findings was about the chapter itself and it was an opportunity to
reinvent yourself through boxing. You know, I felt more confident; I felt like I’d
developed a new identity. And that was a really interesting part of the study. And I
became more acutely aware of my senses, my reactions; I sharpened my senses, so to
speak. So it was very much a reinventing of the self for me, and I think that that
happens more than people talk about in their research as well. When you engage in
research it does change you. Just talking from my own experience, as well, I saw my
body change shape and I felt my body change shape as well. And I think the body is
central to our experience, and that’s what a phenomenological analysis will offer and
explore: this kind of bodily experience as very essential to our development identity
and shifts in identity.
LISA LAZARD
Is there anything else that this kind of approach would offer when studying
psychological phenomena?
HELEN OWTON

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Well, I think as opposed to a discourse analysis, a phenomenological analysis really

aims to breathe life into the experiences. So it offers a way for readers to resonate
with their own experiences – where they can understand things in a different way than
what would be perhaps a little bit more removed from the researcher.
LISA LAZARD
Well, thank you, Helen, for agreeing to come and talk to us about your work today.
HELEN OWTON
Thank you very much, Lisa.

Back to - Helen Owton: Phenomenological analysis

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Linda Finlay: video tutorial on

phenomenological analysis
Transcript
LINDA FINLAY
Hello. My name is Linda Finlay, and I’m going to show you a way of doing
phenomenological analysis. Specifically, I’m going to demonstrate the epoché and the
process of iteratively building a description from the data. To do this, I’m going to use
data from real research that Virginia Eatough and I completed. Our research was on
the lived experience of discovering a kindred-spirit connection.
Now, I can’t show you every last step of the process, because the analysis took place
over many days of reflection and dialogue. But I can give you a sense of it. So we
collected 24 written concrete descriptions of people’s experience. And that became
our data. And I’m going to use one of these descriptions now to show you the process.
Now, if you’re going to do a phenomenological project, you’ll have an actual
interview transcript to work with, rather than just a written descriptive account. But
they’re both text and what you do with it is similar, so I think you’ll get an idea from
this demonstration.
Before you start to do the research, though, and before you immerse yourself in the
data, it’s very important you try and engage the phenomenological attitude: the
epoché. Now, this is a special process where you try and put into brackets any
previous knowledge or assumptions about your phenomena, and agnostically set them
aside. You just try to be open.
So, in this instance, I have a view already about what ‘kindred spirit’ means to me,
and I’ve had my own experiences. I also have some theoretical knowledge. But I need
to try and be as open as possible to my participant’s words and experience, and to not
impose my meanings on the data. I need to try and see the world from the
participant’s point of view. It’s their experience that’s important. And it’s about what
the world feels like in their shoes, taking an insider perspective.
When you do your project, you want to try and be open to being surprised, to seeing
the world in a fresh and different way. If you don’t engage the epoché in this way,
your results are just likely to be a rehash of what you already know. So, I wonder how
useful that is.
OK. So having cleared the decks to try and be open to your participant, you’re then
ready to read the account. So we start by taking time to dwell with the words of the
story. And I’ll be going through Account 10. And this is in your packs; so I suggest
you read it now to yourself and let yourself be impacted by it.
So, as you’re reading it, you’ll see that the story starts with the participant saying she
finds it hard to separate the experience of connecting with a kindred spirit and falling
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in love, or lust, at first sight. She goes on to explain that she met this man at work, at a
work meeting, and he stood out rather and kind of wowed her with his empathic
presence, and she felt her soul being warmed by him.
And she found she really wanted to make more of a connection with him. And … But
she wasn’t going to meet him again. But then she did and all her first impressions
were confirmed and he was amazing. And she ended up manoeuvring to work on a
project with him, which allowed them to meet more regularly. She fell in love with
him, but kept it a secret. And she notes how she feels ‘good’ when he’s in the same
space as her; she feels he understands and shares her perspective; she feels he’s her
soulmate. So while she had a few sexual fantasies about him, the relationship has
remained platonic and a bit distant.
OK. So that’s the basic story. I wonder what your immediate embodied response to
her account is. For me, my first response has been to feel caught up in her story and in
the romance of it all. And I feel quite touched, a bit excited, you know? And that’s
interesting, as it may be relevant to the phenomena we’re investigating.
In this case, I may have empathically attuned to something of this participant’s
experience. So I note that, but again put aside my feelings in order to focus on hers.
Now we get to work. I should say at this point that it’s not easy to do a
phenomenological analysis. There isn’t a clear-cut method or a series of steps to
follow. It’s more about a process of embodied immersion in the world of the
participant, and the horizontalisation, where we try to resist putting things into a kind
of hierarchy of importance too quickly. We just want to dwell with the data and see
what emerges as key themes or particularly evocative points.
You’re always looking for implicit meanings. You know, it’s not always what is said
directly, and that makes it even more difficult. You’re kind of taking intuitive leaps as
much as you are working logically and systematically.
As part of dwelling with the data, I read it over and over again. And then I get the
highlighter pen out and I highlight what seems to be key phrases, the evocative or
powerful phrases. And then, from there, we’re basically trying to tune in to the
specific experience and distil the essence down to key ideas and emergent themes.
So, let me demonstrate. Now, in this first passage, this point that it’s hard for her to
separate out falling in love with making a kindred spirit connection seems quite
relevant. And it’s a quick connection: love at first sight; kindred spirit at first sight.
And then a bit further down, this word ‘heart flip’. I think it’s an extraordinary word.
Virginia and I were really taken with the metaphor and the image, and just what it
captured in terms of that loving excitement which we can feel in that moment of
having an amazing connection.
And then that last sentence in that paragraph. Here the participant is noting how
special this man made her feel – her soul was being warmed. That’s another
metaphorical flourish that could be helpful when we eventually write up. And then,
again, this sentence in the next paragraph, wanting to make a connection seems a vital
part of the account here: the phenomena.
And then we come to this passage, where the idea of mutual understanding, a kind of
meeting of minds, seems really relevant to a kindred-spirit connection. She’s
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emphasising here the idea of feeling good and that there’s a sense of being validated
by him. Then, finally, there’s this word ‘soulmate’ and ‘destined’, both very powerful.
It suggests something of a profound connection as fated.
So the point is to dwell with the highlighted words and to empathise with this
experience. You know, think to yourself, if this is my experience, what am I feeling?
What does the world look like if I’m standing in this place and saying this particular
thing?
And think about all those life-world dimensions you’ve been learning about. You
know, what is the participant’s sense of embodiment and their sense of self? And is
something being revealed about their relationships with others, or their sense of time
and space?
So Virginia and I did exactly … went through this kind of process and came up with
the following tentative emergent themes. The first two speak of embodiment in
relations with others. Then, the third, the connection as ‘fated’: that speaks to an
intriguing temporal and spatial dimension across time and space, and possibly
cosmos. And then last, the last two, relate to the life-worldly aspect of the
relationships with others.
So this was our starting list for Account 10. We went through this kind of process for
each of the accounts individually, and then we took our emergent themes and
combined them. So here on the left you can see we have our themes from Account 10,
though in a different order. And on the right are how the themes developed,
combining the most significant themes from all the accounts.
So our initial feeling good and validated by the other emerged into the bigger theme
of ‘bonding’, with all the sub-themes of solidarity, meshing, enrichment, and
delighting in the other. The mutuality theme from Account 10, the sharing of
perspective, meeting of minds, got worked up into a broader theme which we call
‘fellowship’: affirming meeting of minds. Then our connection as fated, the soulmate,
turned into the broader theme of ‘destiny’: meeting a soulmate. Our falling in love lust
at first sight, the instant attraction, that got turned into ‘chemistry’: bodily-felt affinity,
attraction, and eros. And then, finally, our lovely ‘heart flip’ word, that actually
became a sub-theme in the bigger theme of ‘love, romance, sex, friendship and
agape’.
OK. But, now, these are all just words; they’re just themes. The final, and arguably
the most important, stage of doing phenomenological analysis is in the descriptive
writing. Remember that phenomenology is all about describing the lived experience –
not explaining, not trying to analyse it. It’s just about trying to capture what it is like
to be living in that experience – that phenomena – and trying to language the
description in such a way that it resonates and evokes the experience in the reader.
So, I mean, just look at the words we’re using there in the themes – like the sub-
themes – like ‘inexorable pull’ or ‘flowering in the presence of the other’. These are
metaphors that are quite powerful, aren’t they? So the writing up is important; and
those are the kind of metaphors you could bring in.

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So, if you decide to do a phenomenological analysis, try to enjoy it, and, hopefully,
you’ll feel surprised by what you discover, and maybe a little inspired or awed. Good
luck with your project.

Back to - Linda Finlay: video tutorial on phenomenological

analysis

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