Within the research process of hermeneutic theory is the concept of the ‘hermeneutic cycle’, ‘hermeneutic turn’ or the ‘hermeneutic circle’. Smith et al... (2009, p. 35) describe the positive process of engaging with the participant. Smith describes how this can help our understanding of the research process, describing the researcher at one point in the circle 'preoccupied by their own concerns, influenced by their preconceptions, shaped by their experience and expertise'. These preconceptions are then ‘bracketed’ or at least acknowledged before the encounter with the participant takes place. The focus on the story of the participant is intense, “it is a complex dynamic process” (Smith, 2007, p.6). The researcher then continues around the circle back home to analyse the material from the participant returning to their “prior conceptions and experience”, but “also irretrievably changed because of the encounter with the new, the participant and his/her account”. As the encounter is re- lived by the researcher and sense-making takes place, “the various actions inherent in the hermeneutic circle between part and whole take place”.
Although the process of IPA is a linear research method as an organised process of step by step analysis, it can also be described as an iterative process. The account of the hermeneutic circle described alludes to the researcher moving back and forth to engage with the data in different ways (Smith et al. 2009). In the study of school engagement I, as the researcher, would be involved in the analysis of the parents' and pupils' accounts of their perceptions of engagement. Each experience would be a focus in its own right and this would be examined in terms of the whole experience of the ‘Our Future' Project, and in terms of the experience of each participant.
The combination of IPA therefore requires phenomenological and hermeneutic insights in the words of Smith et al... (2009, p.37):
It is phenomenological in attempting to get as close as possible to the personal experience of the participant, but recognises that this inevitably becomes an interpretative endeavour for both participant and researcher. Without phenomenology there would be nothing to interpret; without the hermeneutic, the phenomenon would not be seen.
3.6 iv Idiography
The third major influence on IPA is idiography. Smith et al... (2009, p.29) describe the sense of detail and depth of thorough and systematic analysis required in IPA. It is through the depth and focus on the particular rather than the nomothetic, the psychological approach from studying groups or populations of devising universal claims. IPA is an approach committed to understanding experience from the perspective of the particular person in a particular context. It is also committed to detail that is particular to individual participants and its examination in detail before making wider claims from the detailed accounts of those individuals. In the context of my research study, the intention as researcher central to the process is to take the detail from the individual parents and pupils involved and “through this small, purposively-selected and carefully-situated sample…prescribe a different way of establishing generalisations” (Smith et al...2009, p.29; Harré,1979). Warnock (1987) states that by delving deeper into the particular we are taken closer to the universal and closer to significant aspects of the general (Smith et al... 2009, p.32). IPA therefore, provides not only the opportunity to understand the individual experience, but also, through depth and understanding, to recognise messages that will resonate more widely in understanding the phenomenon for particular
individuals. In the example of this study, the phenomenon is the lived experience of individuals participating in a school project.
3.6v Language
The importance of language is integral to IPA because the ability of participants to communicate their experiences is essential. Language is also vital to the way in which the researcher makes sense of participant’s sense making. Mulhall (1996, 2005, p.89) talks about the distinctive account of the nature of truth and reality generated from Heidegger’s analysis of language. Communication by parents and pupils of their lived experience is conveyed through spoken language in this study. Semi-structured interview questions are the tool used to draw the ‘distinctive account’ from them.
Language is a framework of meaning. To grasp the framework is not just to grasp certain facts about our uses of words; it is also to grasp the essence of things. (Mulhall, 1996, 2005, p.93).
Smith et al. (2009, p.194) refer to Heidegger’s emphasis that ‘our interpretations of experience are always shaped and limited and enabled by language’.
3.7vi Limitations
Critics of IPA highlight the reliance on participant’s ability to communicate their experiences and a researcher’s ability to reflect and to analyse (Brocki and Wearden, 2006). I am also mindful that IPA research is about the cultural position of a person. Heidegger talks of ‘Dasein’ as being “thrown into the world”. Smith et al... (2009, p.194) refer to this as a metaphor for understanding the relationship we have with cultural objects and resources. “The physical, social and cultural world has an existence which preceded us and which constrains what we can do, be and claim.” In terms of my research, I am trying to appreciate what the participant’s terms of reference for engagement with school consists of and to appreciate the cultural dimension and the effect of parent on pupil’s engagement with school in the context of history and time.
IPA is experiential research rather than discursive (Eatough and Smith, 2006; Larkin et al. 2006). The discursive, for example, in discourse analysis has as its focus the way in which language constructs people’s worlds. IPA, in being an experiential approach, focuses on the understanding and sense-making of the thoughts,
motivations and actions of participants. Language is recognised in IPA as having an influence on the way in which participants’ lives are constructed it is also through language that the researcher will make sense of the participants’ experiences. Discourse analysis is described as strongly constructionist compared with IPA reflecting a lighter constructionist description (Smith et al... 2009).
I was aware of limitations, such as that raised by Willig (2001) who makes the point that meeting to be interviewed is a challenge for people who are not used to the open interview approach. That may be so, but in giving that opportunity one could argue the challenge is counteracted by the empowerment that person may achieve in having an experience to which they have agreed by their specific consent. All participants in the study, outside of the interview questions, expressed to me that they were pleased to have the opportunity to talk to someone. Without research which allows people to tell their stories and give their perspectives, it can be argued that many rich seams of data are lost.
I was more mindful of the likelihood of my own short comings in doing justice to the narratives of the individuals whom I met. This point is raised by Smith et al... (2009, p.194), our interpretations of experience as human beings are shaped, limited and enabled by language. It is likewise so for the interpreter-researcher. As a novice of the IPA process I noted that my interpretations of what I had heard, and my experience of the interviews, were also something that was open to question, to reflect upon and consider how I might change. How would my ‘Lebenswelt’ (Husserl, 1970) interact with that of the participants, and how as part of the hermeneutic circle, would I give my interpretation and analysis to present the findings in a rigorous manner? Therefore, the checks and balances of my own reflection and reflexivity, peer support, tutor guidance, references to Smith et al... (2009)’s structure, Yardley’s principles (2000) and Yin’s audit guidelines (1989) are all ways in which I was provided with the necessary framework to furnish me with the required confidence in the purpose and place of this research study. In accordance with the point made by Hefferon and Gil-Rodriguez (2011) about ‘theoretical generalisability’, IPA doesn’t lay claim to findings that can be transferred between groups and contexts. The purpose and focus would be to increase understanding and knowledge and contribute to existing research about what can be learned when a school provides an event (‘Our Future’ Project) designed to promote engagement.