Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) is a qualitative research method focused on understanding how individuals make sense of their personal and social experiences, emphasizing the meaning participants attach to those experiences. It involves a dynamic process where both the researcher and participants engage in a double hermeneutic interpretation, aiming to explore complex perceptions rather than verify predetermined hypotheses. IPA is characterized by detailed, case-by-case analysis, often conducted through semi-structured interviews, using purposive sampling to ensure relevance to the research questions.

1. Interpretative
Phenomenological Analysis
(IPA)

2. IPA
 Explores in detail how participants are making sense of their personal and
social world.
 The main currency for an IPA study is the meaning of particular
experiences, events, states hold for participants.
 It involves detailed examination of the participant’s lived experience.
 It attempts to explore personal experience and its concerned with an
individual’s personal perception or account of an object or an event, as
apposed to an attempt to produce an objective statement of the object
or event itself.

3. Continued..
 It emphasizes that the research exercise is a dynamic process with an
active role for the researcher in that process.
 Here, the process of double hermeneutic is involved.
 The participants are trying to make sense of their world, the researcher is
trying to make sense of how participants trying to make sense of their world.
 Thus , IPA is connected to hermeneutics and theories of interpretation.

4. Continued..
 It combines empathic hermeneutics with a questioning hermeneutics.
 Thus, consistent with its phenomenological origins , IPA is concerned with
trying to understand what it is like , from the point of view of the participants
to take their side.
 At the same time detailed IPA analysis can also involve asking critical
questions of the text from participants such as following:
 What is the person trying to achieve here?

5. Continued..
 IPA has a theoretical commitment to the person as a cognitive , linguistic,
affective and physical being and assumes a chain of connection between
people’s talk and their thinking and emotional state.
 At the same time, IPA researchers realize this chain of connection is
complicated, people struggle to express what they are thinking and
feeling.

6. Constructing a research Question and
Deciding a Sample
 IPA is suitable when one is trying to find out how individuals are perceiving
the particular situations they are facing.
 IPA is especially useful when one is concerned with complexity , process or
novelty.
 There is no attempt to test a predetermined hypothesis of the researcher ,
rather , the aim is to explore in detail an area of concern.

7. Examples of Psychological Research
Questions addressed in IPA studies
 How do people with genetic conditions view changing medical
technologies?
 What is the relationship between delusions and personal goals?
 How does a women’s sense of identity change during the transition of
motherhood?
 How do people in the early stage of Alzheimer’s disease perceive and
manage the impact on their sense of self?
 How does being HIV impact on personal relationships?

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 These studies are conducted on small sample size.
 The detailed case by case analysis of individual transcripts take a long time.
 And the aim of the study is to say something about the perceptions and
understandings of this particular group rather than prematurely make more
general claims.

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 This is not to say that IPA is apposed to more general claims for larger
populations , its just that it is committed to the painstaking analysis of cases
rather than jumping to generalizations.
 This is described as an “idiographic mode” of inquiry as apposed to the
nomothetic approach which predominates in psychology.
 In a nomothetic study , analysis is at the level of groups and populations.

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 IPA researchers usually try to find a fairly homogeneous sampling.
 The basic logic is that if one is interviewing , for example six participants it is
not very helpful to think in terms of random or representative sampling.
 IPA , therefore goes in the opposite direction and, through purposive
sampling, finds a more closely defined group for whom the research
question would b significant.

11. Continued..
 As far as sampling is concerned, one has to be pragmatic when doing
research, one's sample will in part be defined by who is prepared to be
included in it.
 There is no right or wrong answer to the question of sample size.
 It partly depends on several factors:
the degree of commitment to the case study level of analysis and
reporting, the richness of individual cases and the constraints one is reporting
under.

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 For instance, IPA studies have been published with the sample of one, four,
nine, fifteen and more.
 Recent trend of conducting IPA with a very small sample in fact.
 A distinctive feature of IPA is its commitment to a detailed interpretative
account of the cases included.
 Many researchers have realized that it can be done with a very small
sample.

13. Continued..
 In recent past, five or six has sometimes been recommended as a
reasonable sample size for a student project using IPA.
 It allows sufficient in depth engagement with each individual case but also
allows a detailed examination of similarity and difference.
 Too large sample can not be handled by the one who is new with IPA
analysis.

14. Collecting Data: Semi Structured Interviews
as the Exemplary Method for IPA
 IPA requires a flexible data collection instrument. While its possible to obtain
data suitable in a number of ways for IPA analysis, such as personal
accounts and diaries probably the best way to collect data for an IPA
study and the way most studies have been conducted is through semi
structured interview.
 This form of interviewing allows the researcher and participant to engage in
a dialogue whereby initial questions are modified in the light of the
participants responses and the investigator is able to probe interesting and
important areas which arises.

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