Phenomenology is the study of lived human experiences from the perspective of those who experience them. It aims to faithfully conceptualize mental processes and structures without adding or subtracting anything. Edmund Husserl developed phenomenology as a reaction to empiricism. There are two approaches - the direct approach investigates consciousness through reflection, while the indirect approach explores the social context through immersion. Data collection methods include interviews, observations, and reflective writings. Reflexivity is key to adopting different perspectives. Hermeneutics is an interpretive approach to understanding texts, especially theological texts. It focuses on bringing out the author's intended meanings within their social and historical context. The process involves analyzing the socio-historical

1. PHENOME
NOLOGY

2. WHAT IS PHENOMENOLOGY?
▸Study of lived, human phenomena within the everyday social
contexts in which the phenomena occur from the perspective of those
who experience them
▸Phenomena comprise anything that human beings live/experience
▸Faithfully conceptualises processes and structures of mental life how
situations are meaningfully lived through as they are experienced
with nothing added and nothing subtracted (Giorgi, 2009)
▸Investigates what is experienced and how it is experienced

3. ORIGIN
▸Edmund Husserl (1939-1962)
▸Developed research method-
phenomenology
▸As a reaction to ways of
constructing world only through
empiricism
▸Investigating life and social world-
Study of context and individuals’
own constructions and meanings
within context

4. ▸Basically epistemological concerns
▸Separation of a conscious actor in a world of objects- key
theme of direct approach in which researcher investigates
the foreground of the phenomenon- develop research
questions that lead to the systematic study of the mental
content of individuals’ inner worlds
▸e.g.. how do students reflect on their own learning
experience?

5. ▸ Ontological concern
▸ Human beings are rooted, immersed
in the world and not separated from
it
▸ Indirect approach
▸ Exploring the background of the
phenomenon
▸ How participants interpret and make
sense of their worlds
▸ Eg. what is the meaning of autonomy
in student teacher relationship?
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)

6. TWO APPROACHES- DIRECT AND
INDIRECT▸DIRECT APPROACH- Direct looking at the phenomenon as
it presents itself in the consciousness of the people who
live it; the researcher on the outside looking in; exploring
human knowing through consciousness- throwing light on
the FOREGROUND of phenomenon
▸Researcher asks participants to reflect on their subjective
experiences of phenomenon in interviews
▸Researcher transforms these subjective constructions
through interpretation to re-present them, faithfully, as
objective constructions

7. ▸INDIRECT APPROACH- get inside the social context of the
phenomenon to live oneself, as it were and look at the
phenomenon more directly; by investigating human being, through
accessing the senses and shared background meanings and
practices- throwing light on the BACKGROUND of the
phenomenon
▸Background accessed through researcher’s immersion in
participants’ life world-record naturally occurring conversation as
text for interpretation
▸Observes everyday practices; records everyday language
▸Interpretation through dialogue with texts (field notes, transcripts
etc)

8. DATA COLLECTION METHODS
▸Participant observation
▸Unstructured interviews,
▸Story telling,
▸Written reflections,
▸Clinical supervision notes,
▸Photographs,
▸Video-recordings
▸Poems, painting and music etc

9. ▸Reflexivity- The ability to reflect upon one’s own
epistemological and ontological authenticity is key in
enabling the adoption of different stances and roles and
using different observing questioning and interpreting
methods within them
▸Example for phenomenological design; individual nurses
engagement with perceived moral problems as they
occurred on and acute cancer centre unit

10. ▸gaining access to everyday-gaining their trust (achieving shared,
social and situational ways of being with participants)
▸dealing with the data- interlinking observational and interview
data- integrated understanding
▸Extensive field notes- accounts of events, records of
conversations and impressions of how people responded to
particular events- freely discussing their feelings- contextual data
▸Now you tell me the PROS & CONS

11. HERMENE
UTICS

12. WHAT IS HERMENEUTICS?
▸an approach for understanding or interpreting the text, and of theological
texts in particular
▸Interpretivism as an epistemology
▸Weber’s notion of Verstein
▸Central idea- the analyst of a text must seek to bring out the meanings of
a text from the perspectives of its author
▸Focusing on the social and historical context within which the text was
produced
▸Can analyse both text and human actions (as text- transcriptions)

13. THE PROCESS
▸Critical hermeneutic approach- emphasis on the location of
interpretation within a specific social and historical context-
analyst of text becomes fully conversant with that context
Three steps
1. SOCIO-HISTORICAL MOMENT- examining the producer of
the text, its intentional recipient, its referent in the world, the
context in which the text is produced, transmitted and
received

14. 2. THE FORMAL MOMENT- formal analysis of the structural and
conventional aspects of the text- examining the constituent parts of
each text and the writing conventions employed- using techniques
such as semiotics or discourse analysis
3. THE INTERPRETATION-REINTERPRETATION MOMENT:
interpretation of the results of first two moments- synthesised
together- plurality of interpretation can occur- hermeneutic circle-
understanding each individual part in reference to the whole!
EMPHASIS ON THE POINT VIEW OF THE AUTHOR OF THE TEXT
AND A SENSITIVITY TO THE CONTEXT

15. REFERENCE
▸Fredrick J Wertz et.al., (2011) “Five Ways of Doing
Qualitative Data Analysis”, The Guiltford Press: New York
▸Somekh, B and Lewin, C (2005), “Research Methods in the
Social Sciences”, Sage Publications: New Delhi;Pg:121-131
▸Bryaman, Alan (2012) “Social Research Methods”, fourth
edition, Oxford University Press: New York; (560-561)