Qualitative Research
Certainly, quantitative research provides important insight into the behavior of human beings. This approach falls short of addressing any personal experiences or meaning that may guide the behavior. The strict focus on reducing human behavior to reinforcement and stimulus response only tells part of the story. Quantitative research does not address the unique personal histories and cognitive understandings inherent within each subject, issues that undoubtedly will influence the way in which a person chooses to act in specific situations. Unquestionably, the study of both behavior and consciousness are necessary in order to understand human nature. Qualitative research values both approaches, inquiring into the internal reality of conscious experience as well as the external reality of behavior.
Traditional research embraces the quantitative approach with a focus on facts, measurements, stimuli and reinforcement. This does not imply that qualitative approaches are unworthy forms of research, devoid of data. Rather than concrete statistical references to behavior common in the quantitative approaches, qualitative research seeks information about thoughts, feelings, emotions, actions, and consciousness (Van Manen, 1990, p. 3). On the other hand, it does not mean that it is possible to make objective and absolute conclusions in response to such data. Every qualitative study will be unique in that it will share data from different sets of individuals as people have unique thoughts, feelings and histories with regard to a phenomenon. Perceptual experience is individual and unique, and as such, each individual’s input will be solely his or her own. There is no guarantee that any findings will be replicated in future studies. Certainly, it is possible that other studies that examine the same phenomenon may find other diversified meanings. Yet, every qualitative study will be different in that it will contain the unique perspectives of the participants involved in the investigation.
While the quantitative approach tests hypotheses, qualitative approaches seek a pre-theoretical understanding of phenomena. Theories offer possible explanations for various phenomena. Theories can also influence the way one interprets data: in essence, theories influence understanding. Once a person learns to look at a phenomenon through the perspective of a theory, it is difficult to see the phenomenon apart from the meaning ascribed by the theory. In this way, a pre-existing theory may restrict one’s ability to find new meanings or understandings with regard to a phenomenon. In order to resist this tendency, a researcher must bracket or move outside of any theoretical explanations of the phenomenon. In order to grasp the meanings associated with the issue, a researcher must be open to new possible meanings of the information provided by the participants.
Often one needs to change his or her focus in order to see new things. To illustrate this point, Ihde (1977) utilized visual perceptual puzzles such as the one below.
Figure 3. “The Hallway” (Ihde, p. 70).
Looking at the picture, some people initially report seeing a hallway. This is their perspective. Still others report seeing a pyramid. Both viewpoints are equally valid. It is easy to grow accustomed to seeing one image but not the other. Through a shift of focus and concentration, as well as the awareness that the object can be perceived in another fashion, an individual can grow to see the possibilities within this ambiguous image. Individuals often become accustomed to looking at the world or a phenomenon in specific ways. It is easy for one’s views to become closed to new ideas, even if evidence is presented to the contrary. Qualitative research allows one a process to challenge his or her previously held beliefs by providing a procedure for examining a phenomenon outside of personal biases and beliefs.
A common criticism of qualitative research is that it lacks scientific rigor. As stated earlier, qualitative research seeks different types of data. Rather than examining the relevance of theories, the intent of qualitative research is the formation of theories. This can only be accomplished through a thorough understanding of the phenomenon at hand. For that reason, the criterion for rigor is much different than that of quantitative approaches. In addition to openness, a good qualitative investigation is correlated with meticulous conformance to the chosen method, thoroughness in data collection, as well as careful reflection and attention to all the data prior to the development of a theory (Davies & Dodd, 2002, pp. 280-283). The qualitative researcher must be willing to see beyond his or her preconceived notions in order to embrace the new insights that will ultimately come through the research process.
By their very nature, both quantitative and qualitative methods pursue the understanding of phenomena, albeit a different type of understanding. While quantitative research customarily tests theories, qualitative research strives to identify the fundamental essence of a phenomenon in order to formulate a theory. For this reason, qualitative researchers are interested in the subjective experience of human beings so that they can form an understanding of those issues that influence the wider phenomenon. Quantitative and qualitative methods are complementary and necessary to develop a full understanding of human behavior.
It is the method that determines the focus of a study and influences the way in which data is interpreted. The focus of this study is to understand the nature of dental fear, gaining a deep understanding of how it affects the lives of others. In essence, the goal is to understand the human experience of dental fear. For this purpose, the phenomenological approach is the most appropriate.
Phenomenology
Phenomenology does not provide us with information in the usual sense of the term. Instead, the practical significance of phenomenological knowledge is formative in nature: It enhances our perceptiveness, it contributes to our sense of tact in human relations, and it provides us with pathic forms of understanding that are embodied, situational, relational and enactive (Van Manen, 2002a).
Phenomenology is a qualitative philosophy that focuses on lived experience. It is the world of lived experience, the lifeworld, which phenomenological research explores. Lived experience is not only the source, but the object as well (Van Manen, 2002b). According to this philosophy, the lived experience of human beings is the fundamental foundation of all cultural and personal values and meaning. Many aspects of humanity, from human inventions, scientific theories, philosophical ideologies, and cultural mores are inspired by lived experience. Lived experience can be seen as the basis for much of human behavior.
As a research philosophy, phenomenology deals with the identification and description of the structures of experience that relate to a phenomenon. These structures include conscious experience, social experience, and imaginative experience as well as the orientation of the participants in the world. The focus is on the collective and common experiences of individuals and the shared meanings that are connected to a phenomenon.
According to phenomenology, personal experience is the result of one’s interaction with the world (objective reality) and his or her cognition (subjective reality). Through the course of daily life, people develop schemas in response to environmental stimuli and situations. These mental frameworks are uniquely personal and are influenced by one’s stage of development, experiences, and personal knowledge. In other words, because each individual has unique experiences and cognitive capabilities, no two people think exactly alike.
Consciousness is always reaching out to the world, directed by the interests, attitudes, expectations and past experience of the perceiver (Van Manen, 2002c). Over time, with exposure to numerous stimuli within the environment, individuals learn to interpret various phenomena in a unique fashion. In this way, consciousness is always influencing perception. Perception, in turn, influences behavior and the way in which one experiences a specific phenomenon.
This fundamental mental process, termed intentionally, allows individuals to translate stimuli into meaningful experience. Intentionally acknowledges that individuals are deeply connected to the environment (Van Manen, 1990, p. 181) and constantly translating real-world stimuli into an object-based reality. “Through intentionally, the sensory data at our disposal, which respond to the unknown stimuli emanating from the physical world, undergo a basic, unavoidable translation or interpretation that leads us to respond to the stimuli as it they were objects (Spinelli,1989, p. 12).” This innate mental process is the cornerstone of one’s conscious relationship with the world. It is very primitive, and as such, can not be explained as it is occurring. Rather, one must examine the process in retrospect and only through reflection. For this reason, it is impossible to bracket this level of understanding. Furthermore, one cannot have complete comprehension of any phenomena. Rather a person seizes upon incomplete aspects of the phenomenon, which are integrated into consciousness according to his or her attitudes, experience and expectations, regarding that phenomenon.
“[E]very experiencing has its reference or diction towards what is experienced, and, contrarily, every experienced phenomenon refers to or reflects a mode of experiencing to which it is present (Ihde, pp. 42-43).” The raw phenomenon or object under investigation is referred to as the noema. That is, the noema is the object as seen through the eyes of an individual. Noema reflects his or her own unique perception regarding the phenomenon: it is “what is experienced, as experienced” (p. 43). For example, refer to Ihde’s “The Hallway” (Figure 3), the noema is one’s initial impression of that picture, be it a hallway, a pyramid or another cognitive construction.
On the other hand, one’s descriptions are interpreted, in part, by his or her own pre-suppositions about the phenomenon. These pre-perceptual expectations are referred to as noetic. They form the reference point of the experience, containing the personal meanings that a phenomenon holds for the individual. Thus, the noesis refers to the “referential element of experience” (Spinelli, p. 13) and is the interpretive mode through which one views an object. In other words, the noesis refers to how one’s particular beliefs were acquired and strives to identify the basis for an individual’s unique experience of a phenomenon. (Figure 3.) If one had read the caption prior to defining the picture he or she may have utilized the name of the caption to define the image as a hallway. The caption would be a noetic aspect that assisted in the definition of the object.
One’s interpretation of a phenomenon can change with the acquisition of new knowledge. In this way, interpretation is circular as it is based upon pre-supposed knowledge and personal assumptions about the phenomenon. For this reason, a researcher should project his or her own expectations so that they are explicit and made open for examination. The researcher’s personal assumptions and beliefs about the phenomenon will, undoubtedly, influence the interpretation. An examination of these assumptions and beliefs can allow the researcher an opportunity to step outside of the self in an effort to see the phenomenon in a new light. The noetic theories and neomatic data form the basis of a phenomenological study.
In ordinary life, people grasp and conceptualize parts of a phenomenon, using their preconceptions to define the phenomena according to their unique experience. Personal experience is always filtered through one’s cognitive processes. Albert Einstein stated “Pure logical thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world; all knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it (as cited in Spinelli, p. 1).” The primary aim of phenomenology is to strive towards an understanding of one’s subjective reality, their life-world. Phenomenology endeavors to understand the essence of an experience, the experience as it exists prior to conceptualization. Phenomenology is interested in gathering personal descriptions of one’s experience, through descriptive analysis. It is an attempt to understand the appearance of an unfiltered experience in another. It emphasizes understanding the experience of others and to gather as much unfiltered information about the world of the participant prior to thematizing it, reflecting upon it and theorizing about it. In order to gain this deep level of understanding, one must thoroughly examine the experience of their participants and their behavior. Phenomenology allows a researcher to learn about the life-world of others by listening to their descriptions of their subjective world. In order to see the world through the eyes of the participants, one must be distanced from his or her own pre-suppositions and biases. In sum, the intention is to try to understand what the participants are thinking and feeling with regard to the phenomenon.
Phenomenological Methods
Generally, there are two types of phenomenological research activities; empirical and reflective. Empirical investigation explores various types of personal descriptions of the participants’ lived experiences while reflective inquiries strive to interpret the meaning contained within these vivid descriptions. One collects the data; the other seeks to elucidate the information. Both of these methods allow for a more complete picture of the phenomenon .
Empirical methods are utilized to gather and investigated sources of lived experience. Lived experience can take the form of narratives, stories, and anecdotes; gathered through observation, interviews, questionnaires and language analysis. Through interviewing, observing, reading, writing and living, we learn about personal experiences. These human experiences are the key data of a phenomenological study. In order to learn more about the experience of others, researchers need to ask participants to describe the experience as vividly as possible.
The goal of phenomenological research is to recognize and understand the phenomenon through the lived content of the person living through the situation. Researchers do not simply collect data on these subjective experiences in order to report on the perspective of the participants. Rather, one strives to collect examples of experiences in order to reflect on the meanings that they may contain. For this reason, it is not necessary to concern oneself with the factual content of the recollection (Van Manen, 2002d). It is more important to garner a vivid subjective account of the experience, so that one can strive to feel the sense of it and describe the experience in a way that remains true to that of the participant. The key is to describe the story from the perspective of each of the participants from their perspective, through their own eyes.
Contrasting empirical methods are reflective methods. The aim of reflective methodology is to find the meaning of a phenomenon by explicitly categorizing and illustrating the aspects of meaning related to the lived experience. One way to accomplish this is through linguistic reflection. This involves carefully examining the words, phrases and expressions used by the participants during interviews and on questionnaires to refer to the phenomenon. Another way to examine these words is to conduct an etymological analysis. Over time, words tend to lose their original meaning; etymological origins may alert us to the original connotations and lived experiences which inspired the invention of the words (Van Manen, 2002e). In addition, a concept analysis can be helpful by reducing an abstract word or phrase into its fundamental semantic parts. Through linguistic reflection, researchers can gain insight into how the participants perceive the phenomenon.
Human consciousness is embodied. It relates and acts in the world through the body. For this reason it is a good idea to examine the bodily experience of the participants with regard to the phenomenon. One way to do this is to consciously attend to the descriptions of the environment, what type of sensory related phrases do to they use? What do they see, hear or feel in the environment? Another way to learn about the way embodied consciousness interacts within the world is by examining the routines, habits, rules and customs of the participants (Van Manen, 2002f). In addition to corporeal experiences, Van Manen (1990) recommends three other lifeworld guides to reflection; spatiality, temporality and relationality (pp. 101-105). While examining a participant’s narrative account, a researcher may find data which give clues as to how a participant physically feels, with regard to size, in comparison to an aspect of the phenomenon (spatiality). In addition, one can learn how the phenomenon influences his or her perception of time (temporality) and how it influences his or her relationships with others (relationality).
The rule of epoché.
Individuals create personalized interpretations of events based upon their unique understandings, motives and experiences. Therefore individuals create their own personalized view of phenomenon. To be sure, a researcher’s aims, questions and methodology is influenced by previous knowledge, beliefs and assumptions about the subject at hand. These pre-conceived notions need to be acknowledged by the researcher in order to increase his or her level of understanding about the topic.
“The rule of epoché urges us to impose an ‘openness’ on our immediate experience so that our subsequent interpretations of it may prove to be more adequate (Spinelli, p. 17).” For this reason, phenomenological reduction requires a researcher to bracket, or set aside, his or her own biases, expectations, everyday understandings, and assumptions in order to focus and understand the reality of the participants. One can then separate personal experience from academic knowledge. It is impossible to separate oneself from his or her own lived experience. Suspending one’s pre-suppositions allows one to fully concentrate on the experience of others: to see through their eyes, hear through their ears and feel what they feel, to try to get as close to the other persons experience as possible. Gathering data means truly listening to the experience of another. This yields a pure description of the phenomena as conveyed through consciousness, allowing the researcher to develop a conceptual foundation with regard to the phenomenon.
It is the responsibility of the researcher to identify and describe their own underlying assumptions which form the basis of his or her knowledge. It is this knowledge which undoubtedly formed the foundation for a theory. Rather than ignore these presuppositions, a researcher examines them for any hidden insights or understandings that relate to the phenomena. In addition, one should consider how these presuppositions (or theories) simplify the experiential reality upon which they are based. Theoretical explanations have a tendency to explain phenomena that are difficult to understand in a lived sense. In order to stay true to the lived experience, one must consider how the phenomenon is experienced and describe examples of possible situations in which the phenomenon occurs.
“The primacy of perception makes philosophy an endless endeavor to clarify the meaning of experience without denying its density and obscurity (Armstrong, 1997).” Human consciousness is ambiguous. It is impossible to define and verbalize at the point of action. Knowledge comes from reflection. Although reflection can help put one in touch with his or her pre-suppositions, it cannot allow one’s conscious beliefs to become completely transparent. First, the rule of epoché demands that a researcher bracket his or her judgments. Secondly, it outlines a process of deconstruction and reconstruction in order to sift out those underlying aspects of meaning that may not be apparent.
The second step involves deconstructing the data. The researcher begins to search for any repetitive themes which symbolize the essential qualities of the participant’s experience. It is important to stay open to the elements of the experience so that one can be thorough in consideration of all the data. Upon deconstructing the subjective details, the researcher arranges the information according to theme. Through thematizing, one can examine the primary and supplementary themes in the narratives of the participants. This allows one to expose the layers of meaning with regard to the phenomenon. Through reflective attentiveness, one can often find the unique significance within various aspects of the narrative, leading to new insights and, perhaps, hidden meanings. In addition this process can help determine the distinct character of each person’s experience as well as the commonalties among a group of people who are discussing the same phenomenon.
The rule of description.
“A good phenomenological description is collected by lived experience and recollects lived experience- is validated by lived experience and it validates lived experience (Van Manen, p. 27).” The goal of the researcher is to understand the world through the eyes of the participant as much as possible in order to explore his or her experiences and understand them. For this reason, while conducting phenomenological research, it is important to describe the experiences of others, not explain them. This allows a researcher to focus upon the instant and unique impressions of the participant, minimizing the opportunity for developing a speculative theoretical explanation for the phenomena.
Phenomenology is contemplative, evidential and descriptive in exploring the phenomenon in its essence. The main focus of this research is personal experience. Researchers strive to access the experience of others, through a conversational dialogue. In concentrating on the narratives of the participants, seeing through their eyes, one receives insights into the phenomenon.
The rule of horizontalization.
In the act of simply reporting in a descriptive manner what is consciously being experienced while avoiding any hierarchical assumptions with regard to the items of description, we are better able to examine an experience with far less prejudice and with a much greater degree of adequacy (Spinelli, p. 18).
Personal pre-suppositions can cause an individual to consider certain aspects of an experience as more significant than another. Due the unique nature of human perception, what may seem important to one person may not be seen as consequential by another. For this reason, the rule of horizontalization, asserts that every detail found among the descriptive data is of equal significance. In addition, it reminds the researcher to describe the data as experienced while avoiding hierarchical assumptions. In this way, the experience can be examined with less bias and a greater degree of veracity.
References
Davies, D. & Dodd, J. (2002). Qualitative Research and the Question of Rigor. Qualitative Health Research, 12(2), 279-289.
Ihde, D. (1977). Experimental phenomenology: an introduction. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
Spinelli, E. (1989). The interpreted world: an introduction to phenomenological psychology. London: Sage Publications.
Van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience: human science for an action sensitive pedagogy. Ontario: The Althouse Press.
Van Manen, M. (2002a). Epistemology of Practice. Phenomenology Online, Retrieved November 24, 2004 from http://www.phenomenologyonline.com/inquiry/68.html
Van Manen, M. (2002b). Empirical methods. Phenomenology Online, Retrieved November 24, 2004 from http://www.phenomenologyonline.com/inquiry/25.html
Van Manen, M. (2002c). Existential phenomenology. Phenomenology Online, Retrieved November 24, 2004 from http://www.phenomenologyonline.com/inquiry/4.html
Van Manen, M. (2002d). Practice as pathic knowledge. Phenomenology Online, Retrieved November 24, 2004 from http://www.phenomenologyonline.com/inquiry/69.html
Van Manen, M. (2002e). Etymological reflection. Phenomenology Online, Retrieved November 24, 2004 from http://www.phenomenologyonline.com/inquiry/43.html
Van Manen, M. (2002f). Embodied Knowledge. Phenomenology Online, Retrieved November 24, 2004 from http://www.phenomenologyonline.com/inquiry/70.html
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