IPA

Question 1

What is IPA?

Answer 1

A nuanced examination and evaluation of participants lived experiences and how they make sense of it (their interpretations + researchers interpretations of this)
A methodology

Question 2

What does IPA stand for?

Answer 2

Interpretative phenomenological analysis

Question 3

Philosophical roots of IPA

Answer 3

Phenomenology = study of consciously experienced phenomena
Hermeneutics = philosophical of interpretation
Idiographic = focus on individual and uniqueness rather than trying to find general trends

Question 4

Why is IPA improtant?

Answer 4

STudy of subjective experience of others by interpreting people’s subjective interpretations of phenomena

Question 5

Reductionist

Answer 5

Attempting to study something by breaking down observable phenomena to its basic parts and studying it in isolation

Question 6

Reductionist views of psychology

Answer 6

Wundt - Consciousness can be broken down into basic elements such as sensations and perceptions
And so it is simply equal to the sum of these parts

Question 7

Holistic views of psychology

Answer 7

William James argued consciousness should be studied as a continuous whole
Because elements such as experience, adaptation etc come together continuously and should not be isolated

Question 8

features of IPA

Answer 8

Very small samples
Gains a lot of detailed data on a very specific and niche topic

Question 9

Hermeneutics and interpretation

Answer 9

Participants own interpretations are weighted more heavily than the researchers (leans to experiential) - (still aspect of critical analysis by researcher)
Because how they make sense of this will be contextualised by the researcher - context etc

Question 10

2 aspects of interpretation

Answer 10

Participants voices and interpretation
Researcher’s interpretation of this data collected

Question 11

How to balance researchers interpretations vs participants interpretations?

Answer 11

Complete:
Empathic interpretation = rich descriptions of participants interpretation
Critical interpretation = after immersion in data, if contradictions exist then consider alternative ones based on triangulation of evidence from different sources

Question 12

Features of IPA: Phenomoenology and the epistemology, is it constructivist?

Answer 12

Focuses on subjective experience and layers of interpretation so language and culture is used by participants to construct narrative of understanding their life

Question 13

What other epistemology does IPA use?

Answer 13

Interested in phenomenal experience: so participants subjective conscious and sensory experience (external physical factors) also impact the mental constructions someone has on a phenomenum and vice versa
So draws on symbolic interactionism (context impacts)