Printable PDF Version A Pathway for Interpretive Phenomenology
Sherrill A. Conroy
Sherrill A. Conroy, RN BN MEd DPhil, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Nursing, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Abstract: In this article, a qualitative method for research is offered that clearly incorporates Heideggerian philosophy into an interpretive phenomenological research design. Several unique contributions to interpretive research are provided. Tested Hermeneutical Principles for Research (HPR) are outlined. These frame the design and method, and practically integrate the underlying philosophy.
Keywords: qualitative design and method; Heideggerian philosophy; interpretive phenomenology; hermeneutical principles for research; research pathways.
Citation Information:
Conroy, S. A. (2003). A pathway for interpretive phenomenology. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 2(3). Article 4. Retrieved [INSERT DATE] from http://www.ualberta.ca/~iiqm/backissues/2_3final/html/conroy.html
While conducting a study to look at teaching and learning health care ethics for practice1, the literature search into interpretive research methodologies did not clearly reveal how to practically conceptualize and implement an interpretive study. Koch (1995, 1996) commented that many researchers mistakenly identify their phenomenological research as being based on Heidegger’s ontological philosophy, while in actuality they base their research method on Husserlian phenomenological, thereby confusing forms of phenomenology. The two philosophies are fundamentally different in their orientation toward phenomenology, regardless of some researcher’s utilisation of the words ‘interpretive phenomenology’ to frame their Husserlian-based design and method. In light of this, the goal of this article is to contribute to qualitative research methodology literature: i) through viewing interpretive phenomenology (IP) as a spiralling process rather than a circular movement; ii) by presenting Hermeneutical Principles for Research (HPR) that were formulated, tested and amplified; iii) by introducing ‘paradigm shift’ as an important aspect of IP research pathways and as distinct from Benner’s (1984, 1994) inclusion of ‘paradigm’ in her phenomenological method; iv) through suggesting basic research pathways for accomplishing research predicated on Heideggerian philosophy; and v) by offering a brief commentary upon the strengths and some challenges for hermeneutically based research.
Following intensive reading of Heideggerian ideas (Dreyfus, 1989; Gadamer, 1989; Hall, 1993; Heidegger, 1925, 1927, 1998; Hoy, 1993; Taylor, 1989, 1993), I distilled and synthesized the proposals for interpretive research suggested by Addison (1992), Benner (1994), Leonard (1994), and Plager (1994), resulting in the formulation of the HPR (Table 1). Use of these principles fosters synergy between interpretive intentions and practical interpretation. While developing these principles, I set out a framework to guide my interpretive enquiry then continually tested and refined the principles while incorporating them in a pilot study which looked at the moral inclinations of health care students.
Benner (1994) suggested that IP researchers should look for themes, paradigms and exemplars. All three constitute ways of thought and/or action, implying consistency within any given example or person of a recurrent thematic way of thinking. However, it is also important from an interpretive approach to seek out modalities and fluctuations in any one person’s ways of thinking. This would reflect how people incorporate and respond to their unsettled sense of existence in the world and is consistent with Heidegger’s thinking about "Being" and "time" or "historicity" (discussed below). Interpretation of a paradigm shift reflects hermeneutic movement consistent with the "hermeneutical spiral" and the non-static nature of our existence in the world. A recognition that paradox exists and is integral in everyday existence acknowledges that change is possible in and endemic to life, and that our existence has elements of historicity (past, present, and future) which shape and inform our lives as we shape others’. The recognition moves us past the idea of life being concrete and static into a position where everyday interpretation merges with re-interpretation, where our life in the world is co-constituted with the lives of others and our knowledge of the world is not constructed in an individualistic fashion.
An implicit acknowledgement of the reality and necessity of movement within any encounter between people and their ways of thinking and acting in the world stimulates questioning and interpretation by the researcher regarding how any shift in thinking was provoked. Probing the narrator’s story for such shifts encourages the researcher to delve into the multiple layers of others’ narratives, seeking new apprehensions that change the understandings of all connected with the research: reader, narrator, and/or researcher. A lucid definition of a "paradigm shift" is proposed that suggests a paradigm shift is vital to exposing a "hermeneutic turn" (Hoy, 1993). Looking for such shifts moves the research from description to interpretation, from epistemology to ontology, from knowing-that to knowing-how. This paradigm shift as an interpretive point of interest replaces Benner’s ‘paradigm’ as a phenomenological objectified state of thought and is included within the pathways detailed below for conducting IP research soundly based on HPR. The pathways are signposted and carefully specified for easy replication of the intention of the pathway. This article concludes with a commentary about the strengths of IP research and a challenge for further hermeneutical researchers to test the vigour of the pathways.
I begin by setting out some central concepts that draw on my comprehensions of Heidegger’s philosophy. The discussion provides a taste of what Heidegger pointed to as associated with ‘being in the world’(Dasein) and establishes some common understandings of the philosophical underpinnings of the research pathways suggested herein. Readers interested in more profound deliberations on Heidegger’s philosophical distinctions have a plethora of texts from which to choose. It is critical to realize the inherent difficulty of connecting ontologically-based philosophy with practical research. I deliberately move away from common research vocabulary to trigger a change in the way of thinking about interpretive research.
Heidegger often used the metaphor of "coming to a clearing in the woods" as a way of coming in touch with an enlightened interpretation of the world. I follow his example of using metaphors and changing words to re-present things as they are through altering the researcher’s perception of, for example, ‘data’ as isolated bits of fact or even of ‘method’ as a system of doing research. The vocabulary belongs in scientific investigations which might seek numerical universality rather than shared interpretation of the world. Interpretive research must follow the twists and turns of the terrain in which we are interested.
It is appropriate to think of participants as placing their footprints on the world and in the world in the dance of life. Footprints are unique, but they blend with the earth’s contours or with others’ tracks and fade or stray from a pathway in the woods. Metaphorically I use "footprints" to refer to an individual’s contribution to the hermeneutical spiral. In the research process, as in life itself, many footprints join together through interpretation to create a new pattern of understanding. In keeping with Heidegger’s clearing-in-the-woods metaphor, I use "pathways" as possible ways to turn in the research process, and consider that none are paved in concrete. The resultant framework is intended to provide beginning interpretive researchers with ‘something to hang their hat on’ until the research process begins to flow for them. The tabulated pathway (Table 2) might appear linear to casual reading. That linear impression belies the complexity, seamlessness, and flux inherent in interpretive research and risks trivialising interpretive work. Researchers must open their minds to unpredictable movement between the columns and spaces. It is hoped that this attempt to offer a pathway for interpretive research will encourage researchers to question more deeply how to preserve the nature of interpretation within their work. The pathways suggest a beginning way towards disclosing what is ineffable in our experience in the world.
The design and pathways draw on Heidegger’s (1925, 1927,1998) philosophical understanding of a person’s position within time and place, Buber’s (1966,1979) and Macmurray’s (1957, 1961) profound understandings of Self in relation to the Other, and feminist and liberation authors’ (Aptheker, 1989; Brown, Debold, Tappan, & Gilligan, 1991, Eisner, 1985; Finch, 1993; Freire, 1970, 1974; Jackson, 1991; Razack, 1993) integration of researcher and participants into the design, pathways, and ownership of research. I begin by laying out some Heideggerian concepts which underpin the design and pathways before moving to the HPR. Three appendices are included which convey some major Heideggerian concepts. A more in-depth discussion can be found in Conroy, 2001.
Heidegger articulated his views on our unsettled sense of being, the world and our place in it. Being or "Dasein" translates as ‘Human being’ and refers fundamentally to intelligibility or how we make sense of the world, our place in it, and how we become aware of this place. We exist in a world where there is reciprocal interdependence between self, others, and objects which slowly come into our awareness as the need arises. Things show up as they are against the "background," which is the place where the mindless everyday coping skills, discriminations, and practices into which we are socialized are situated. We use our everyday coping skills or tools without mental representation. We operate within a web of relations with the tools to which people assign with purposes. Our everyday practices are aspects of ways of coping with the world. We may interact with people and things in a transparent (or unaware) way (ready-to-hand). When provoked by something or some person in a usual way, we react in a less familiar way or in an "unready-to-hand" fashion. In other words, we continue to interact with people and objects in our everyday existence without thinking about what we are doing until we are stimulated by the unusual. At the point when we become aware, at some level, of what we are doing, we change our level of awareness and way of interacting to fit the context and make it all work.
To illustrate these ways of engaging with, and in, the world, Heidegger used the everyday example of hammering. We change our way of holding a hammer at a point when we realize that the hammer is not doing what we intended it to do. When our slight adjustments to our coping do not work in the unready-to-hand mode, when our use of the hammer is very clumsy and the nail does not go in to the wood at the intended angle, we become more aware of the problem and of how we deal with the problem. Heidegger called this a "present-at-hand" mode of engaging with the world. At its most extreme extent, it leads us to think about the world and how it operates in a very rationalistic way.
In the background, we engage in ‘silent thought’. What is most significant in our lives is not easily accessible to reflection - it is not visible to intentionality. Being is self-interpreting and is necessarily involved in and dependent upon the world. We exist amid a world of shared meanings and understandings in the social context as a mode of being human which exists factically. Factiticity refers to the idea that we are able to understand ourselves as bound up in our own as well as others’ destiny. We ‘dwell alongside’ other persons. A person is never settled in the world, never clear about the world in which one finds oneself. Steiner (1992) provides useful metaphors to explain Heidegger’s human being such as: Being as a suppressed echo; Being as similar to the moments of experience and ineffability in music, where even the intervals have meaning: "In music, being and meaning are inextricable. They deny paraphrase. But they are, and our experience of this ‘essentiality’ is as certain as any in human awareness" (p. 43). Our Being-in-the-world is a specific but holistic form of existence which emerges in reciprocal interdependence with other Beings.
Heidegger proposed that we exist in the world authentically, inauthentically, or in an undifferentiated way. The authentic mode of existence is one where we are genuine and consistent in our thinking about and acting with the world. We strive to act in concert with what is morally good in the world. The authentic person is an engaged agent. The inauthentic person has no such internal consistency between thinking and acting, and may by typified as a person who "speaks with a forked tongue". This person is a disengaged or distant agent. Undifferentiated engagement with the world can be seen in persons who do things by habit, by rote, or under orders - those who ‘do’ but do not ‘think’ but acquire a way of (non)thinking and (non)acting that does not set them out as different from others: the anonymous self. The person would do things because "they have always been done that way," but when challenged on the moral justification for their thought or action might apply rules for the sake of following the rule without disputing the grounds for what might be internal faulty logic within the rule (such as is seen in stereotypical thinking). Such a person is an "agent’s agent," akin to a drone performing the community’s work without thinking; this agent has chosen to negate personal agency. There may be, however, possible combinations of authentic-undifferentiated engagement or inauthentic-undifferentiated engagement. In the first combination, one may act habitually in an authentic manner, but not always make conscious decisions each and every encounter with others about how to act. This person’s thinking is habitually authentic. With the latter combination, when challenged as to the faulty logic or the anonymity of one’s thinking, that person might produce glib arguments to hide their true thoughts and purposes.
In the background of our existence is a web of relations where something becomes intelligible through the hermeneutic task of interpretation that incorporates historicity and forestructures of understanding. Being is constantly interpreting the meaning of things though not always aware of this work. We are born into a world that existed before us, and implicitly pick up or assume the meanings the world has taken on (Past), interact with the world as tempered by the past and our own experience with the world (Present), and project what we will do and be in the future (Future). Interpretation is an ongoing and evolving task. It is an interactive act because persons form an integral part of a communal world, and do not exist as separate entities; the world and the individual co-constitute meanings or understandings (co-constitution). Our meanings are not constructed as individual thinkers without relation to other people; we are always in relation with others. Our understanding and interpretation of the world is co-constituted and synergistic.
The hermeneutical circle made famous by Heidegger (1927) is the circular form of interpretation shared between persons in their interactions. It is by definition a closed loop that needed loosening without losing its interactive possibilities and interpretive nature. Opening the hermeneutical circle (Benner, 1984, 1994; Dreyfus, 1993; Gadamer, 1989; Heidegger, 1927; Hoy, 1993; Taylor, 1989, 1993) into a spiral (Conroy, 2001; Heidegger, 1998) releases interpretive research from a closed loop of enquiry represented by the circle. The hermeneutical spiral ‘re-presents’ the spiralling process of interpretation where the interpretations of a group of people build on each others’ understandings over a period of time. This release from a closed loop of interpretation allows the research process to grow and include interpretation by others rather than just the primary researcher and study participant(s). Subsumed in the following discussion are comments about the research process as founded on a spiral. In the research spiral, Heideggerian philosophy underscores every aspect of interpretive research. Heidegger sought to bring to attention something of the path that shows itself to thinking only on the way: shows itself and withdraws...Whoever sets out on the path of thinking knows least of all concerning the matter that... determines his vocation and moves him towards it. Whoever lets himself enter upon the way toward an abode in the oldest of the old will bow to the necessity of later being understood differently than he thought he understood himself (1998, p. xiii).
Heideggerian prejudice stems from prejudgements governing our own understanding and that of others. Interpretation always supposes a shared understanding. The hermeneutical task of interpretation shared in this instance in the research process reveals one’s own "foregrounding" (‘taken-for-granted’ background). and the appropriateness of one’s own "fore-meanings" ( a general grasp of the whole situation we have in advance) and prejudices. A "fore-having" is something we grasp in advance. Prejudgement is used within interpretation to reflect on that which is under study. It is necessarily part of our interpretation of the world and joins in the hermeneutical spiral with the understandings of others. The commonly used research term ‘bias’ is a pejorative form of prejudice and is not used in this IP design and pathway.
In the pilot research project with the health care students and educators, hermeneutical principles for research (HPR) were derived inductively from my previous life and research experience, and were enhanced by a critical review of interpretive research and philosophical literature. HPR demand pathways that value ‘individual’ experience and allow for interpretation in a spiral fashion by respective parties to the research. Revision, experimental application, and testing of these developed principles occurred concurrently within and throughout the pilot. The challenge became to activate these principles in interpretive research. I indicate a given HPR in this article by reference to its number in Table 1 when specific principles were tested and reflected on within the hermeneutic action of the study.
TABLE 1 Hermeneutical Principles for Research
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In order to illustrate a workable IP design and pathway, I draw on the pilot and its simplified conceptual model (Figure 1), then briefly discuss the four focal groups of interest. These help to locate subsequent discussion that demonstrates how HPR can be incorporated into research design and pathways.
In reflecting upon how I could get the most ‘rounded’ understanding of how health care students understood what it meant to be moral, I decided that it was necessary to include four groups in the research: students, educators, researcher, and community.
Figure 1. The Conceptual Model
Students comprised the primary focal group. The purpose for their inclusion was to uncover what was morally significant to students engaged in learning about ethics in health care practice (HPR#1). Student narrations were the vehicles to access student understandings.
Educators formed the second group of interest. Their inclusion was in recognition of the pivotal role they play in the acculturation of students into the health care world. The interpretation of what is significant to students allows a glimpse as well of what is significant to educators (HPR#1,5).
The researcher constituted the third focal group in the hermeneutical spiral. The researcher included myself primarily, and second readers of the interpretation worksheets. The purpose for any emphasis on this group was to make explicit the involvement and therefore any influence (prejudice, in the Heideggerian tradition) the group had on interpretations of meaning. One of the study’s intentions was to make explicit what is tacitly or implicitly understood. While I sought to make explicit the values, beliefs and assumptions of students, educators (HPR#2,3,4,8,15,16) and, minimally, of the community, I also had to examine my own. I brought my existing interpretations of the world to the research (HPR#2,4,5,15). I needed to unpack some of those impressions in order to open myself to ‘what was there’. ‘Second readers’ audited randomly selected narratives and my corresponding interpretation. They contributed through their participation and commentary to the hermeneutical spiral of interpretation (HPR#6). An example is provided later in Table 5.
The community composed the fourth group. In the larger, more amorphous sense, community is society at large which contributes to the background understanding of the study participants (HPR#20). In the conceptual framework graphic (Figure 1), community forms the amorphous background. Each group gives meaning to the others and derives meaning from the communal background. The community influences the context of the educational setting, of the students’ experience (past and present), and of the research itself.
Within the hermeneutical spiral of interpretation, both researcher and participant build on their background interpretation as each reflects and interprets what is happening within and across the narrative and interview sessions (concurrent interpretation). The hermeneutical ripple effect of the spiral is dynamic, impinges on others’ interpretations, and, over time, changes the understandings of all. Ongoing interaction engenders reflection and active dialogue within the narrative sessions, the research process, and continual re-interpretation of the world. It includes sharing personal values, beliefs and assumptions, and reflections between participants and researcher.
Interpretation spirals outward to include second readers as they gain access to the narrative, and make their contribution. Footprints are interpreted and interpretation leads to more footprints. The researcher continues to expand the interpretation: (i) through repeated visits to the original footprints; (ii) by making connections with other participants’ narratives; (iii) through notations made in ongoing logs; and (iv) by consulting documentary evidence including contextually relevant publications. Reflection upon the process, documented in a Decision Trail Log gradually coalesces the theoretical and the practical in an ongoing reflection-and-action spiral which moves the research onwards.
Development and testing of HPR begins as soon as the study is conceived and put on paper. IP design necessarily includes at least three foundational facets: (i) an openness to change and input from participants throughout the study until in-depth interpretation commences; (ii) active contribution of the focal groups to the hermeneutical research spiral; and (iii) built-in ongoing reflection and interpretation by all contributors as appropriate to six aspects of the study, described later. In the pilot study, the development of further principles for educational practice and for further IP research flowed from the reflection (indicated by the arrows) inherent to this design (Fig 2). Making interpretations, values, beliefs and assumptions explicit after critical reflection imbues the study intention, design, pathways and implementation.
Figure 2. The Study Design
Permeability to innovative ways of gathering more information about and interpreting the footprints fosters a shared engagement with participants in the research process itself (HPR#9). This can lead to decisions such as: (i) to use story or narrative-telling as the tool to increase student participant input; (ii) to open the venue for the narrations to the discretion of the participants; and (iii) to increase participants’ access to their own footprints and to active participation in the research process itself (HPR#6,9,16). These strategies tilt the balance of influence toward the participants so they can be ‘heard in their own right’ with minimal interference from the researcher. One has to ensure the researcher’s credibility in transparently accessing participants’ meanings during narrations and in the interpretation without overlaying one’s own understandings. This includes scrutinizing what is or is not shared with participants, and why, in order to identify any blind spots.
Narratives are a prime research tool that allow immediate access to the participant’s world with minimal overlay of the researcher’s language, pre-understandings and directive actions, while promoting immersion in the other person’s world (HPR#1). Additionally, narrations provide an opportunity for participants to reflect upon their concerns (HPR#10).
I now address six practical Aspects of IP as tailored for the pilot study. The spiralling, interactive nature of interpretation (Figure 3) is not evident in the seemingly linear format of the aspects when they are tabulated as in Table 2. Briefly, these include:
Figure 3. The Hermeneutical Spiral
Interpretation is integral to each aspect. In Aspects 1 and 2, there is more immediate engagement between the researcher and the researched; in Aspects 3 through to 6, the research turns towards broader conceptual interaction with the footprints. In both earlier and later phases, attempts are made to understand more profoundly what is happening within participants in their world. The spiralling interpretation moves the research process beyond the immediate concerns of the researched towards interpretation of a greater pattern of participant engagement with the world. This pattern became clearer after interpreting several participants’ stories. In critically reflecting on the shared world of the participants, one moves beyond Heidegger’s proposal by not only pointing out background transparent activities, but also by attempting to draw out and make explicit broader implications of background meanings for consideration when engaged in the research.
Figure 3 graphically represents the spiralling nature of interpretation in concert with the six Aspects. The sphere is a minimized version of the conceptual research framework (Figure 1). Its inclusion demonstrates the implication of focal groups in the hermeneutical spiral. In dividing the pathways into six aspects particularly as presented in Table 2, I distort the seamlessness of the interpretive process, in order to present a clear account of the process. HPR can be actively tested and reformulated throughout the six aspects. Below in Aspect 1A, I show how interpretation procedures are built into attending to footprints with participants, followed by how HPR are integrated within Aspect 1.
I sought characteristic dispositions within the student toward what she felt significant in her university experience. Multiple narrative sessions over an unspecified period of time provided enough repetition of her understandings to allow a glimpse of what was significant to her in the past and present, as well as how she wanted to be (historicity and significance). Any later session rounded out and confirmed what was usually evident in the first session. I was interested in the student’s reflections but not necessarily a change in her orientation over the course of study.
Footprint tracks and collection strategies
The primary source of raw footprints was the audio-taped student narratives (voice text) and the respective typed transcriptions (written text). They were supplemented by educator interviews and documentary evidence. Narrative interpretation occurred simultaneously in the heat of the narrative action as well as in the active dialogue with the texts by myself, then by second readers. These interpretations added to the raw voice text footprints. Table 3 outlines the footprint sources and indicates, by the broken lines between the first three columns, how interpretation occurred concurrently with footprint collection, in keeping with hermeneutical understanding.
Table 2. Research aspects
| Aspect 1 1A Attending to footprints 1B Concurrent Interpetation | Aspect 1 1A Attending to footprints | Aspect 3 2nd Reader & Educator | Aspect 4 Paradigm Shift Identification | Aspect 5 Exemplar Development | Aspect 6 Principle Development |
| Student participation solicited and narratives sessions carried out. Double audio-taping during sessions with one tape given to student. After each session, audio and written text reviewed concomitantly to ‘revisit’ the session. Written text inserted into Column 1 of worksheet Interpreted student’s narrative looking for what causes anxiety. Initial issues, values, concerns and themes, as interpreted, compiled.Initial interpretation fed back to students for comment Educator interviews solicited, completed, annotated and returned for feedback as to their truthfulness as representative of the educator’s expressed experience Programme & course outlines reviewed for explicit ethics content Logs developed to track research progress, problems and insights | Précis written, in column 2 of the worksheet, of what I thought the student was saying at ‘face value’. Précis written of what I said to enable me to question and reveal my Background Interpreted narratives for anxiety indicators & inserted comments in column 3 of worksheet: Hunches, intuitions, insights documented in my Insight Journal & Inspirations Log, Tentative concept-themes compiled Each student narrative interpreted multiple times attmpting to unwrap Background meanings | Second readers given interpretation worksheets (oral and written texts + interpretation) to provide consensual validation or not of my findings of significance and to insert their own interpretations as desired; Educator interviews and the curricula examined to discover the contribution of significant meanings to the students’ worlds Curricula examined looking for explicit, implicit and null (that which is excluded) content. Narratives re-examined looking for community input via student mention of clients and educators | A paradigm shift is a change in a way of ‘seeing’ and coping with the world. An instance or instances where there has been an alteration in one’s way of understanding about how to exist in the world and about how to interact in the future. Paradigm shifts identified | An exemplar is a case which demonstrates consistency in concerns, meanings, knowledge, values, and/or skills common to a participant’s experience in the world. Exemplar cases drawn from the themes. | Principles for educators derived inductively from the footprints and interpretation Principles for IP research derived inductively and practically from its application in this research |
Ongoing logs
In order to keep to the spirit of researcher-as-reflector during the whole process, ongoing logs help to track the researcher’s understandings, misunderstandings and decisions. These can then be used in the interrogation of the researcher’s interpretations. This interrogation provokes insights into one’s role as researcher and the influence of the researcher on the process. These insights can then be similarly interrogated and confirmed by second readers and in any further interpretation. The ‘ongoing log’ provides an account of the research process, including such evidence as the occasion of initial contacts with the larger world, session cancellations by participants, and of one’s own perceptions. ‘Decision-trail’, ‘Insights’ and ‘Inspirations’ logs supplement the research documents and are used to track thoughts about the research process and contribute to ongoing interpretation.
Continual oscillation between footprint collection and footprint interpretation occurs in Aspects 1A, 1B, and 2. For clarity, I now describe more specifically, how students’ narratives, educators’ interviews, and documentary sources were approached in Aspect 1B and some interpretive points addressed to them.
The narrative accounts contained evidence of actual ontological reflection-in-action within the ebb and flow of the sessions, in keeping with Being in the world. By this reflection, I mean two major things: (i) there was evidence of movement by a participant between the past and the present (historicity) and of forward reflection about what the participant wanted to be (temporality); (ii) participants, with or without my intervention would reflect and make connections between past experiences and their present way of perceiving what was significant. For example, several times, individuals would say something like "I never thought of ‘that’ in that light before".
Immersion in the narration necessitates keeping a running account or a ‘double internal tape’ incorporating what had been said and what was being said (Benner, 1994; Seidman, 1991). It enables one (i) to assist the participant to return to the topic if he had lost his train of thought or (ii) to link previously expressed thoughts (HPR#8,17) as demanded by effective concurrent interpretation.
As appropriate, one could offer observations during the narrative event of similarity or difference within the story and interpretation within and across sessions done to that point in time (HPR#8). The researcher can do this by direct reference in one’s dialogue, by simple reflective comment on what the participant has said, or through confrontation (Egan, 1994). HPR#5 requires that one ‘draw out what is hidden’ in the narrative accounts and interpret it based on background understandings of the participants and the researcher. One hopes to elicit further elaboration by the participant on what one interprets as a possible emergent pattern.
Table 3. Footprint Sources - Pilot Study
| Narratives & Interviews | Audio tapes | Transcripts | Feedback | Curricula | Reflective Notes |
| Student: Educator: | each student narrative double-taped one copy given to student for self reflection and as verification tool for truthfulness and goodness of fit one copy for the researcher, used in voice text transcription into written text by the secretary transcript & audiotape use combined in the interpretation & its verification by second readers. provided context and texture to narratives: > laughter, length of pauses, soft speech, etc | transcribed text of student narratives used for interpretation in conjunction wit audio-tapes transcript validated against the audiotape to correct any transcription errors due to secretary’s unfamiliarity with medical terminology or with participants’ speech style. interpretation worksheets made up: | To student: cross-narrative values, issues, concerns, themes shared after second and subsequent narratives From student: From second readers: To educators: | explicit curricula: course outlines, lecture notes, and medical ethics lectures implicit curricula: null curricula: | notations made: By myself: By second readers: |
Operationalising HPR in footprints collection
A constantly questioning attitude (HPR# 7) is necessary while collecting and interpreting footprints. Table 4 outlines some suggested questions to address to the footprints. The phenomenological task involves decision-making starting with what would comprize the footprint sources. One questions what sources would give the most rounded footprint tracks to disclose answers to the research questions. In the pilot study, I needed to decide what footprints were interpretable and how any interpretation would be accomplished. I chose to see interpretation by participants, by myself, and (later) by second readers as inclusive and complementary. From the outset, one needs to maintain a constantly questioning attitude in the search for missing or incomplete understandings and to delve for deeper meanings. In order to operationalize this principle in further research, each participant might receive a audiotape copy of the narrative. Possession of a personal copy of the audiotape allows the participant access to her footprints for comparison with the preliminary interpretations given to her at a subsequent session (HPR# 6). It offers a vehicle for future reflection during the research and long after the research project is completed (HPR# 10), providing a confirmation of what has been related during any session.
Interpretive questions addressed to participants’ footprints (HPR# 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 17, 18, 20)
Interpretation focusses on understanding the meaning of what someone says, rather than "breaking up a concept, proposition ... or fact into its simple or ultimate constituents" (Audi, 1999, p.25). It is closer to a synthesis or a pulling together of separate elements. One can pose the ‘Hermeneutic Development of Commentary’ questions (Table 4) during narrations and during interpretation. One ‘runs a double tape’ in one’s head, looking for answers to some of these questions.
Table 4. Hermeneutic Development of Commentary
When listening to the tapes, I noted tone of voice, silences, pacing and balance of conversations as contributing to ‘mood’, where moods are open to the public and stem from cultural sensitivity.Notes: underlining in text denotes some degree of voice emphasis at is being said 'on the face' of their words - participants and researcher? (Précis form- Putting their and my words into my words)What is the line of thought - within a segment and across segments of participants’ words within one session? |
Open stance; availability (HPR# 3, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13)
If one minimizes the researcher’s voice within the sessions, thinking this would lessen any researcher bias introduced into the conversation, one risks: (i) forgetting the value of hermeneutical prejudice; and (ii) creating an impediment to the natural interchange in human communication by blocking a natural flow to the narratives. One must enter the conversations more naturally when appropriate, maintaining an open questioning attitude, encouraging active self-reflective practice within the participants without dominating the flow. Anything a participant brings to the research is of significance and anxiety to the participant and is valuable as footprints, no matter how trivial or unconnected it seems to the researcher. The participant may not even be aware the topic is significant to him. However, his thought process has its own internal logic.
Active, engaged listening (HPR# 1, 5, 6)
Narrative sessions demand active, engaged listening, a keeping with the rhythm of the narrative, and an engagement with the topic and with the background understanding. In immersing oneself in the hermeneutic spiral, one is more able to draw out what is hidden within the narrative accounts through careful attention to what is being, and what has already been, said. Researcher contributions to the sessions are often in the form of restatement, reflective observation, or requests for clarification of what is being said in order to draw out what is hidden (HPR #5).
Common understanding (HPR# 7)
In searching for instances of misperception and for deeper understandings, I frequently clarified what a narrator said to ensure my understanding. This provided a common expression of the intent or feeling of a narrative bit, with immediate access for the narrator to that common meaning made explicit in the narrative session. Thus, she could refute or agree with my understanding. If there were agreement, the narrative would typically continue without pause, and the narrator may then have expanded on the point she was trying to make. If she refuted my perception of what she was saying, then she would typically explain the point. I attempted to match her narrative rhythm. The ‘Hermeneutic Development of Commentary’ questions (Table 4) help to honestly and consistently appraise one’s interpretation. They serve as a guide for second readers to do likewise.
Concurrent interpretation (HPR# 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11)
This occurs during any session and then in the preliminary identification of values, beliefs, themes, and mood. During the narration, picking up on points already raised by a participant clarifies and establishes their saliency. This process requires high level ‘attending to’ the participant’s verbal and non-verbal communication, sensing and responding to his mood and tone. The required skills include visual, auditory and kinesthetic ways of communicating trust and empathy, such as smiling at appropriate times, leaning towards the participant, head nodding in affirmation of having heard, eye contact, use of ‘um-hmm’, relaxed speed of speech, and discriminating use of appropriate touch.
Reflective accounts (HPR# 10, 18)
As Razack (1993) suggests, one needs to be aware that one’s own purposes do not become the end points of the footprints collection. Narratives can be self-reflective accounts of what participants experience as situations of eustress or distress for them. Eustress is positive stress which impels one to act authentically. Distress is negative stress which causes actors to act in ways contrary to their basic inclinations or to conform with negative role-modelling (Conroy, 2001). In the pilot study, anxiety was taken as an indicator or either form of stress.
Sharing reflections with participants (HPR# 2, 5, 6)
Interpretation, already present at an ontological level when two people encounter each other, can be made explicit during the sessions. One can share thoughts about the values, issues/concerns/interests, practices, and themes seen running through a given narrative. Participants can also comment on any written feedback regarding these shared thoughts when provided prior to any subsequent sessions.
Making explicit what is implicit (HPR# 10)
Ongoing log-keeping encourages reflexivity in regard to study events. The ‘Ongoing Log’ tracks the progress of and thoughts about the research. Out of it grows the Decision Trail Log and, as interpretation starts in earnest, an Insights Journal to keep track of any apprehension of what is a familiar part of the background, and an Intuitions Log to keep track of instances of ‘coming into the clearing’ in the researcher’s understanding of what was significant to participants. Log keeping also prompts on-going reflection on implicit assumptions.
In approaching the written text, it is useful to re-listen to the audio-recording it is transcribed from and to write a précis of what the participant and researcher each said. This allows the researcher to re-immerse in the participant’s world (HPR# 3, 7). Writing précis refreshes access to what is happening in the narrative session. In that writing process and in interpreting the events, what was disclosed as primary and meaningful within the narrative becomes more apparent. This writing also opens up one’s background understanding to scrutiny (HPR #2, 3, 4) in Aspect 3. It enables perception of areas deliberately or unwittingly ignored during the narration. The précis form a source of footprints in their own right. Table 5 provides an example of an interpretation worksheet. Column 1 of the worksheet, represented in the left column of Table 5, contains the narrative written text with each line numbered. Column 2 of the original worksheet consists of the précis of what the narrator and listener each said. This column is not shown in Table 5 due to space limitations. The original Column 3 (right side of Table 5) includes all interpretation commentary including second reader comments. After careful listening several times to each audiotape, notations are added and text highlighted where non-verbal communication occurs such as silence, pauses, laughter, and so on. The number of seconds in lengthy pauses are specified as, for example, [..10..] to indicate a pause lasting ten seconds. Typically interpretation of something valued by a participant might involve two processes: (i) looking for the positive characteristics of role models or situations the participant admires; (ii) examining the negative characteristics of role models or systems.
Anxiety indicators can act as a re-entry point into interpretation through attention to verbal and nonverbal cues. Connections are made between what was being said ‘on the surface’ and what the participant might possibly be alluding to from deep within. Throughout the interpretation, the ‘Hermeneutic Development of Commentary’ is consulted and further developed as an aid to interpretation. The third column of the worksheet (Table 5) can be used for general and specific interpretation notations about phenomena of interest. Themes (as identified beginning in Aspect 1) are any concepts running through a narrative consistently.
Table 5. Sample Interpretation
| Narrative - Clair: Session #3 | Interpretation | ||||||||||||
Lines 286- 291: We’re not prepared for the realities that basically the hospital is saying, "make more with less" and that it really depends on who...the staff you work with. If we work on one of the floors...the staff is more or less supportive but you, you have to really fight for help. You want help? You’ve got to go and drag somebody by the scruff of the neck and say "I need help now"...Talking to the head nurse..may or may not yield fruitful results. Because her bottom line is the budget... On the other floor, the head nurse and the assistant head nurse realise the system is putting a terrible burden on the nurses and so even when they don’t have the material resources to offer..4s.. They emphasize and they try and find somewhere. The head nurse closed beds ... She realised her staff were not even practising safely...so she closed 5 beds for two months. She negotiated with the hospital to do it ... Not every nurse has the motivation to do that. Lines 313- 324: Well, even ethically, if you feel that you are able to consult your charge nurse to ask a couple other people their opinion, when you make your decision on how you allot your care or if you’ve asked people to help you and no one has a free hand, you feel ...as if, as if you’ve done your best ethically to, to care for your patients or to try to make your decisions. And, um..I find that, that makes me able to go home with more of a clear conscience...I may have given the same care ultimately but I feel a lot better about what I did. And unfortunately that’s sort of double edged because if you have a ..3s.. if you have a careless kind of team, people can use that to defuse their responsibility and, and be less responsible. But if you have a good team it means that, it gives you, it empowers you to be more ethical and to be, um ..4s.. more accountable ... That’s something, that’s a resource actually that I don’t think that they really taught us to think about in school | Lack of support from the staff Lack of support between professionals as each tries to find a way to ‘survive’ Values: reciprocity, connectedness
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In this Aspect, interpretation begins to spiral outwards to include auditing and interpretation by second readers. Interrogation of the role of others in contributing to participants’ worlds and the role of the greater community must form part of the interpretive process. These additions contextualize the experience of participants.
Introducing the study to the research team
As primary researcher, I approached five people to act as second readers. By the nature of their professional background, they were already sensitized to look for the obscure.
Second reader inclusion in interpretation
Interpretation by second readers starts after a narrative session is finished and transcribed. Ideally, some second readers would do a blind reading and interpretation while others would audit the primary investigator’s interpretations. Either way, their contributions contribute to subsequent interpretative work. Their comments confirm the multiple layers of meanings disclosed within the narratives.
Each second reader can be provided with a copied version of the audio-taped session, a copy of the corresponding interpretation work sheet (with or without another’s interpretation inserted), Heidegger’s modes of existing, modes of engagement and his three-fold task of interpretation (Appendix A), the hermeneutic development of commentary, and a glossary of Heideggerian terms. Giving the worksheet to second readers helps to ensure the explicitness of the shared world of the researched and the researcher (HPR#2). In this sharing one opens up one’s commentary to wider scrutiny. The audit ensures the quality of the interpretation and provides verification that the research is performed in accordance with stated intentions.
Interpreting and reflecting critically upon the community’s contribution to student inclinations
The participant’s narratives are a rich source of information about other relevant people in the world of the participants. Notations about their contributions are made on the worksheets. The community, as an amorphous entity, needs examination because of the influence it has upon the everyday existence of participants and researcher. One way of achieving some level of interpretation is to make explicit some of the non-pejorative myths which surround the chosen setting.
A paradigm shift is a change in a way of ‘seeing’ and coping with the world. It is an instance or instances where there an alteration has occurred in one’s way of understanding how to exist in the world and how to interact in the future, a ‘hermeneutic turn’ (Hoy, 1993). Paradigm shifts are interpreted from changes in values, beliefs, or attitudes first developed in Aspect 1and noted in tentative themes identified across a participant’s narratives. It is important to look for paradigm shifts, be they a turning toward or a turning away from authenticity. A ‘turn toward’ can signify an entrenchment of values, attitudes or beliefs, confirming a stronger commitment to authentic action. A turning toward authenticity and away from inauthentic or undifferentiated existence signals a shift in a way of existing. A turning away from authenticity indicates an adoption of inauthentic or undifferentiated modes of existing. In this case, the person is reflecting Heidegger’s disowning of responsibility or failure to take a stand regarding his own existence (see Appendix A). This definition of paradigm shift as a turning point differs from Benner’s search for paradigms as "strong instances of concern or ways of being in the world" (1994, p.113). My clarification allows for a clearer differentiation between theme, paradigm shift and exemplar. This provokes an appreciation of the possibility of movement between modes of engagement with the world.
An exemplar is a case that demonstrates consistency in concerns, meanings, knowledge, and skills common to a participant’s experiencing of the world. Through exemplars a case can show up as an archetypical example of something. The goal of exemplar development "is to make qualitative distinctions having to do with intents and meanings" (Benner, 1994, p.118), where practical intention grows within practical experience and where "there is a recognition of alternative possibilities and a choice in action, of one of these" (Macmurray, 1957, p.179).
One then needs to determine possible parameters to the basic concept included in the exemplar. If one looks among many participants for examples of exemplars, one could use one participant to serve as an archetype for the chosen phenomenon or develop an aggregate archetype drawing upon several narrators. In doing the former, there is a danger that the footprints are reduced to a single common denominator. Thus, one might try to present both single and clustered archetypes. Although the circumstances surrounding the participants’ lived experience may be different, the pattern of response or concern is the same in clustered exemplars.
Principle development can add to the originally proposed research outcomes and contribute to the emersion of new, unconsidered outcomes (Conroy, 2001). For example, HPR can be refined and developed further. Second, after hermeneutic interrogation of the footprints begins, the multitude of footprints encourages further development of research questions and formulation of principles relevant for the situation under study. As an illustration, I identified instances of explicit and implicit teaching during the interpretation process of the pilot study. I tracked these modes of teaching across educators interviews, student narratives, and the available documentary evidence. It became apparent that the most powerful teaching was done at the implicit level. The resultant ‘Principles for Health Care Educators’ were mainly directed, therefore, at making explicit what is implicit and provided a response to the relevant research question. Third, development of inductively derived Principles for IP Research could contribute to the body of knowledge about interpretive research and suggest areas for further validation.
Any worthwhile qualitative research must be able to withstand rigorous scrutiny to ensure rigour in the research and to avoid sloppiness or excessive subjectivity. The IP pathways detailed above proved resistant to scrutiny when Guba and Lincoln’s (1981) four tests of rigour were applied. They are also useful when designing, implementing, and evaluating IP research. The tests are: 1) truth value (credibility), which refers to how close the interpretation conforms to what the participants are trying to say; 2) applicability (fittingness), which is how useful the research is considered to be by the participants and the readers of the research; 3) consistency (auditability), referring to equal treatment for all participants; and 4) neutrality (confirmability), which is ensured through external blind reading of texts and/or their interpretation.
In keeping with these tests for rigour, the following points can be incorporated in a hermeneutical project:
Immersion in the participant’s world provides added credibility, fittingness, applicability to the research (HPR# 3). The research fosters reflection in, and with, participants and second readers. Rigour is preserved through the rationality of the articulation of lived experience of the participants and researcher, and emergent themes, paradigms, and exemplars. Although the pilot project had a small number of participants (if one thinks in a quantitative fashion), larger projects with more researchers and second readers could accommodate more participants. The resultant larger collection of footprints could lend more resonance and confirmability.
The IP design and pathways outlined above integrate Heideggerian concepts within and throughout the process. There is consistency between philosophy, design, pathways, research intentions and outcomes. The design utilizes synthesis rather than analysis. It unifies or builds upon components through induction rather than reducing concepts into units for study then deducing outcomes.
The suggested narrator - listener dyad permits several advantages.
IP can be time consuming for all concerned. The researcher needs to have sufficient life experience to appreciate the subtleties of how the focal groups experience the phenomena under study. However, these difficulties might be countered by a recognition that IP contributes to participants being really heard. Rigorous scrutiny of footprints and their interpretation by several people confirms their existence and interpretation of their existence.
Above, I laid out how incorporation of hermeneutical principles for research into the design and pathways contributes to a sound, coherent, practical, workable study. The design development and execution of such a study requires high-level, open, critical reflection upon the researcher’s own values, assumptions, and beliefs as well as those of the participants and the community in which they find themselves. The design accommodates philosophical, theoretical and practical dimensions in a comprehensive manner. It is faithful to the HPR. I conclude that I have successfully presented Heideggerian-based IP research pathways which researchers can adopt or adapt to their circumstances. A challenge remains for the pathways to be tested for resiliency in further research.
1. In this article, "the study" or to "the pilot study" are in reference to research conducted in completion of the author’s doctoral dissertation (see Conroy, 2001).
| AUTHENTIC | INAUTHENTIC | UNDIFFERENTIATED |
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© Conroy, 2001 - Adapted from Dreyfus, 1991; Guignon, 1993; Heidegger, 1962; Taylor, 1993
Heidegger’s Threefold Structure of Interpretation: The Structure of Understanding
| The hermeneutic task of Interpretation - By Being and by researcher | ||
| A person who is trying to understand a text is always projecting. He projects a meaning for the text as a whole as soon as some initial meaning emerges from the text. Again, the initial meaning emerges only because he is reading the text with particular expectations in regard to a certain meaning. Working out this fore-projection, which is constantly revised in terms of what emerges as he penetrates into the meaning, is understanding what is there...Working out appropriate projections, anticipatory in nature, to be confirmed "by the things" themselves, is the constant task of understanding (Gadamer, 1989, p. 267) | ||
| Fore-having | Foresight | Fore-conception  ‘something we grasp in advance’ |
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©Conroy, 2001 - Adapted from Dreyfus, 1991, pp. 198-199 | ||
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