Phenomenological approach and qualitative research - A case study

Theoretical Framework

Theoretical Framework

 

The empirical literature on transcendental phenomenology, that is based on four basic assumptions:

 

1. Knowledge begins with the description of an experience

2. Phenomenology involves the attempt to suspend all judgments reality until judgments are based on more certainty

3. Reality of an object is linked to a person’s consciousness of it

4. Phenomenology demands the refusal of a subject-object dichotomy The idea of the phenomenology is focusing on the construction of a meaning as a central human activity. Husserl stated, that e.g. when we see a tree, then we watch the tree itself. We don´t see an image nor do we project a packet of sense data into a tree.

Model and Research Questions

A. What dependencies exist between a phenomenological approach and a qualitative research?

 

 B. What factors give value to qualitative research based on interviews?

 

C. What parameters are the most relevant for the research when examining findings, transformation, doctors and teams, loss, despair and elation to despair?

Methodology

A qualitative analysis based on nine interviews with six patients at a large midwestern university medical center in a series of three interviews within 6 weeks, 6 months, and 12 months that were performed posttransplant, while the patients were retrospectively asked to talk about their pretransplant experience as well as their life during and after the transplantation.

Several studies were performed by using phenomenology, in addition to the research towards a grounded theory, have been conducted by the researchers. Data: Reliance was posed on non-numerical primary data.

Other researchers have performed a study by using a sample of 12 patients, one year after the transplantation was made. Result and conclusions The study was framed by the high rates of depression and suffering of patients when awaiting a liver transplantation. As a result of the study, three findings emerged to the disruption of participants’ life story:

1. The patients see themselves in terms of their laboratory results and not with a sense of themselves

2. Participants were preparing for a new life after the transplantation, by wondering on their next career, and simultaneously reflecting on other people´s imagination of them after death Deep sense of loss and loss of vitality, autonomy, and future dreams while people were waiting for the transplantation.

Limitations of the Study

All participants of the study were white, due to the majority of people on the wait list at the researched transplant center. The question is arising, whether a divergent cultural belief on with people of a different ethnic background about time and illness would result in similar results.

Main references

Forsberg, A., Backman, L., & Moller, A. (2000). Experiencing liver transplantation: A phenomenological approach. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 32(2), 327-334 Husserl, E. (1960). 1859-1938 Cartesian meditation: An introduction to phenomenology. The Hague, the Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff

Moral Supporters

How do marginalized parents construct their role in promoting their children’s access to educational opportunity? What lessons might their experience have for our understanding of parent involvement beyond the parame ters of traditional models? This qualitative case study examined the beliefs, goals, and practices of 16 working-class African American and Latino parents whose children were in a college access program at a diverse metro politan high school. It offers an alternative typology of parent roles, which reflects parents’ contrasting social and cultural locations, biographies, and per- ceptions ofas well as relations with their children and the school. With its highlighting of marginalized parents’ voices at a critical juncture in student careers, this article contributes to a more inclusive discourse on families, schooling, and equity

 

How do marginalized parents construct their role in promoting theirchildren’s access to educational opportunity, specifically college? This question is important in light of persistent patterns of underrepresentation of students of color in 4-year colleges, the well-documented influence of parents on students’ aspirations and college pursuit, and calls for greater parent involvement in schooling (Gandara, 1995; Gandara & Bial, 1999; Hossler, Schmit, & Vesper, 1999; McDonough, 1997; Plank & Jordan, 1997). Indeed, parent roles can profoundly affect the extent to which low socioeconomic status (SES) students experience “conflict and challenge” on the pathway to college