Philosophical Roots in Husserl\'s Approach

¶ … philosophical roots in Husserl's approach of phenomenology, later developed as research methodology which branched off into two psychological fields: the phenomenological psychological approach of the 'Duquesne School" (consisting most famously of Giorgi amongst others) and the experiential approaches associated with scientists such as Thompson.

The phenomenological approach is best for understanding description of lived experience in regards to methods that include observation, interviews, discussion, and participant involvement. The objective is to understand the subject from the subject's own perspective; to bracket one's bias and ways of looking at things and try to understand the matter as the subject does. Whether one can actually accomplish this in an objective way is questionable (e.g. Heidegger's insight on Dasein where we are ' being' existing in the world), but one can try (Ihde 1986; Wann, 1964).

The best way for the researcher to do this is via 'phenomenological reduction' which means boiling the description of the subject to the essences (or main themes) of the conversation, imagining the phenomenon in its manifold possibilities which will help the researcher derive structural themes, and, finally, integrating and putting together all of the derived meanings and themes to arrive at a complete (although never conclusive) judgment (Moustakas, 1994).

Phenomenological experimentation takes the place of laboratory-based quantitative research in that it is a qualitative method that seeks to extract rich information that may be open to multiple interpretations. As Dilthey says 'Scientific experiments seek to know and explain. Inquiry into human affairs seeks to understand' (Crotty, p.6). This is the purpose of phenomenology that seeks to understand how the subject feels bout the phenomena, and through understanding how the subject feels, likely unearth new directions, enhanced understanding, and further questions about the phenomena. In that way, phenomenology can lead to quantitative research further down the road for it may unearth information from the subject's perspective that we can later test in a quantitative environment.

Phenomenology overlaps with other scientific methods such as ethnography, hermeneutics and symbolic interactionism. Pure phenomenological research seeks to describe rather than to explain, positing that we can liberate ourselves form bias and start from a subjective-free hypothesis. More contemporary models that employ phenomenology, however, realize that the researcher is an inevitable part of the picture and cannot so readily free himself. These approaches, therefore, recommend that the researcher describes his personal feelings and felt experiences, whilst describing his endeavors to step into the felt experiences of the other. In this way, there is a demarcation with the reader understanding where the researcher is coming from as well as hearing the other's story.

When used in scientific research, the phenomenological method can be applied to single cases or to deliberate sampled populations. In order to be well done, the method necessities a small, but not too small, sample of participants. In the case of phenomenology, as in the case of qualitative studies in general, statistical significance cannot be made (as in quantitative studies) although qualitative validity can be drawn. If the phenomenological researcher has a large enough sample and comes up with some interesting results, he may conclude that he has achieved some qualitative insights. The results of his case studies, however, only serve as guess or assumption for a new direction in which to take the study. They cannot be generalized to other samples or case studies (as in the quantitative method) and therefore they lack significance.

Various methods are used in phenomenological research that include interviews, conversations, participant observation, focus meetings, action research, and analysis of text. The main principle is that maximum depth should be involved with the researcher thoroughly absorbing himself in the subject matter at hand avoiding, to the best of his capacity, external influence of distraction, personal bias, or opinions of others non-related to the study at hand. Empathy and rapport with subject has to be profound, particularly where the researcher may have a priori thoughts or personal stakes with the matter at hand. If the latter exists, it may be better that she not do the research.

Analysis of the research can be somewhat daunting given the vast amount of material (interview notes, tape-recording, jottings etc.) generated by the interviews. The way one goes about this is via a brief cursory reading of the material, roughly identifying key themes and points. One then aggregates these key themes in a set of notes and organizes them with the aid of (for instance) a mind-map or post-it notes so that they become points that one then uses to review the original material again and add to or modify in order to assess whether what one has noted is correct and complete (Hycner, 1985).

Nonetheless, analysis can still be tricky and sometimes messy particularly when data doesn't fall into neat categories and participants may come up with contradictory themes that sometimes seem vague and non-coherent. This is especially problematic when the terms are large. In this case, data is, generally, entered into a database according to various key headings, and a mailmerge tool is used to extract and compare entries. This helps the researcher compare and contrast data, as well as to juxtapose them and identify relationships.

Discussion of porposed study in raltion to theory

Researchers have postied quantities of explanations are regards the sucide phenomenon itself and to aht end they have conducted numerous laboratoery / quantaitive studies. Very fe have evaltueated the mother's feelgins on the phenomena, and this is particualry difficult to do given tha thtis is a taboo sibject. However, interviwewng the mothers, and delving into how they feel form their perspective may likely bring up new aras for explroaiton. Throguh examination of the etiology and phenomenogloy of suide formth e apretn's perspective, the author of this research explains hwo to recognize tis many faces, enahcing socialwrolers' abtiltioy, when dealing with this population (of both parents and wider family of the sudice indivual) to uncover dangers that others, exposed to conventional desctriptions, may miss (Shea, 1999).