1. Phenomenology
Alexis Swendener, Mathew Stange, &
Seth Trenchard
SOCI 407/807 Strategies of Social Research:
Qualitative Methods

2. Phenomenology…A Basic Definition
• Describe meaning for several
individuals of their lived experiences
of a concept or phenomenon.
Cresswell (2007) p. 57

3. Phenomenology…A More Detailed
Look
• Phenomenology is not interested in modern
science’s focus on simplification and reducing
phenomena to abstract laws.
• Examines how people describe things and
experiences through their senses.
Creswell (2007) p. 58
Merriam (2009) p. 9

4. Phenomenology History
• Draws heavily on the writings of German
mathematician Edmund Husserl (1859-1938),
which were expanded by Heidegger, Sartre,
and Merleau-Ponty.
• Moustakas is a major name in
phenomenology today
Creswell (2007)

5. Phenomenology: Philosophical
Underpinnings
• Constructivist: to understand people’s lived
experiences with a phenomenon—socially
constructed realities.
• No objective experience
Hatch (2002), p. 30
Merriam (2009), p. 9

6. Phenomenology: Philosophical
Underpinnings
• Return to traditional task of philosophy
– From “scientism” to a broader search for wisdom
• Philosophy without presuppositions
– Suspend judgments about what is real, the natural
attitude toward a phenomena (i.e. Bracketing)
• Intentionality of consciousness
• Refusal of the subject-object dichotomy
– Reality of phenomena is only understood by the
experience of the individual (constructivist)
Creswell (2007) pp. 58-59

7. Fields Often Using Phenomenology
• Social Sciences
• Health Sciences
• Psychology
• Nursing
• Education
• Phenomenology is well-suited to studying
research questions involving affective, emotional,
and often intense human experiences.
Creswell (2007) p. 58

8. Phenomenology Focus
• Focus on a concept or phenomenon
– Love, anger, betrayal, happiness, caring, undergoing
coronary bypass surgery, what it means to
be/experience being underweight, and so on
• To reduce individual experience with a
phenomenon to a description of the universal
essence.
– To derive inner meaning
– Essence: core meanings, mutually understood through
a commonly experienced phenomenon
Creswell (2007), p. 94, 58
Merriam (2009), p. 26

9. Phenomenology Types
• Hermeneutical Phenomenology
– Reflecting on lived experiences with interpretation
by the researcher.
• Transcendental Phenomenology
– Focus less on the researcher’s interpretation and
more on the describing experiences of
participants.
Creswell (2007) pp. 59-60

10. Units of Analysis
• Primarily people
• But also, art, literature, poetry, biographies,
novels, diaries, journals, music, and so on.
Hatch (2002), p. 30
Creswell (2007), p. 61

11. Phenomenology Process/Methods
• Determine Phenomenology is best approach
for research question/objective
• Identify the phenomenon to study
• Recognize the philosophical assumptions of
phenomenology
• Describe researcher’s own experiences with
phenomenon
SOCI 407/807 Strategies of Social Research:
Qualitative Methods

12. Phenomenology Process/Methods
• Bracket (or epoche) researcher’s assumptions
regarding phenomenon
• Collect data about experiences with
phenomenon
• Develop a composite description of
experiences
– What and how experienced
SOCI 407/807 Strategies of Social Research:
Qualitative Methods

13. Bracketing
• The process of setting aside the researcher’s
experiences with the phenomenon to better
examine the consciousness itself
– Setting aside one’s own understanding of the
phenomenon to look at how other people
experience the phenomenon.
– By detailing the researcher’s experiences with the
phenomenon, they highlight their bias(es)
SOCI 407/807 Strategies of Social Research:
Qualitative Methods

14. Sampling
• A criterion sample: the individuals must have
experienced the phenomenon.
• Usually interviews with 5 to 25 people
• The more diverse the people, the harder it is
to find common experiences.
Creswell (2007), pp. 120-121

15. Data Collection
• Protocol writing
– Individuals write-up their own experiences
• Interviewing
– Gather narrative data from conversation
• Observation
– Gather data by observing
• Studying art, literature, diaries, journals,
music, and so on
SOCI 407/807 Strategies of Social Research:
Qualitative Methods

16. Data Collection
• Two broad questions are the focus of the
interview:
– What have you experienced in terms of this
phenomenon?
– What contexts or situations have typically
influenced or affected your experiences of the
phenomenon?
SOCI 407/807 Strategies of Social Research:
Qualitative Methods

17. Data Analysis
• Horizontalization
– Laying out all the data to examine it as equals
• Highlight significant statements that provide
understanding of participants’ experiences
• Organize the data into clusters and themes
• Phenomenological Reduction
– Process of continually returning to the essence of
the experience to derive inner meaning
SOCI 407/807 Strategies of Social Research:
Qualitative Methods

18. Data Analysis
• Textual description of participants’ experiences
– Imaginative Variation: Description of the context and
how participants experienced the phenomenon
• Description of the researcher’s experiences
• Write a composite description of the
phenomenon
– The essence
– Focus on common experiences of participants, the
underlying structure of experiences
SOCI 407/807 Strategies of Social Research:
Qualitative Methods

19. Reporting Format
• Moustakas’s structure for a phenomenological
study’s write-up:
– Introduction and statement of topic and outline
– Review of relevant literature
– Conceptual framework of the model
– Methodology
– Presentation of data
– Summary, implications, and outcomes
Creswell (2007), pp. 187-188

20. Examples
• Anderson, E. H., & Spencer, M. H. (2002).
Cognitive Representations of AIDS
• Riemen, D. J. (1986). The Essential Structure of
a Caring Interaction: Doing Phenomenology.
SOCI 407/807 Strategies of Social Research:
Qualitative Methods

21. “The reader should come away
from the phenomenology with
the feeling, ‘I understand better
what it is like for someone to
experience that.’”
Questions?
Polkinghorne (1989), p. 146, quoted in
Creswell (2007), p. 62