Section Three: Rationale for Selecting a Qualitative Methodological

4.4.1. Introduction

The issues and debates outlined above provide an overview of the general philosophical framework in which this thesis is based. The subject matter of unemployment and mental health issues meant that a variety of different qualitative methodological approaches could have been adopted; each of which have different research purposes and make different knowledge claims, having been informed by different underlying commitments to fundamental issues relating to the philosophy of science. A more detailed consideration of my methodological stance is given below, where I explicitly compare and contrast alternative qualitative approaches with IPA to justify my use of a phenomenological approach using IPA.

4.4.2. My Choice of a Qualitative Approach

It had been my intention from the beginning to carry out a wholly qualitative piece of research for this thesis. The aim of qualitative endeavour is to demonstrate what and how something exists, rather than its rate of occurrence (Yin, 1989), and so it offers an important mode of inquiry that may generate results of much value (Platt, 1988). I selected IPA as my qualitative approach because it is consistent with the epistemological stance of the research question; that is, it is based on the purpose of my research and is a reflection of the research question posed and how this has been framed. As I have described above, IPA offers a set of methods and techniques that enable the subject matter to be addressed, and thereby acquire the knowledge assumed to be possible in the epistemological stance of the research question.

This position stands in stark contrast to an ideologically-driven approach with its 'blind' commitment to a particular view of how reality should be studied. For example, a methodological commitment to the positivist or quantitative approach in the social sciences has biased what is investigated and the types of research questions

that are asked, simply because they are more amenable to quantification. This bias has been restrictive of the sorts of questions that might be asked about the world and what is considered to be a legitimate scientific investigation of it (Bryman, 2012). However, there are questions that can be asked about the world and moreover, there are extant approaches and research tools that allow us to investigate these questions. Qualitative research is generally hostile to positivist tenets and asserts that there is a fundamental distinction between the natural and the social world (Bryman, 2012). Our social world is inherently meaningful to us and we act on the basis of this imputed meaning; moreover, it is believed that these concerns are not a product of, or governed by, impersonal cause-and-effect processes, and so a different epistemology is required to account for this difference (Smith, 2006). The subject of this thesis – the individual experience as it is meaningfully lived – has been neglected by mainstream 'positivist' psychology because it is incapable of capturing the subjective nature of human experience (Bryman, 2012). A qualitative approach using IPA therefore enables the exploration of these issues and is receptive to the diversity of individuals' different understandings of the world (Smith, 2004).

4.4.3. Qualitative Research Methods and IPA

Qualitative research in psychology may be considered to comprise of four broad methodological approaches, namely; grounded methods, discursive, phenomenological and narrative (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009). There are manifold approaches within each one of these broad categories and they also overlap to some degree, although they do take different ontological and epistemological positions relating to the type of knowledge that they produce and the aims of the analytic process (i.e., what constitutes 'data' and how it should be interpreted) (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009).

With this in mind, I undertook an investigation of the various approaches to qualitative research, knowing that I was primarily interested in what it was like to be

an unemployed graduate with common mental health issues, and how these graduates experienced and viewed the world around them. I therefore took less of an interest in adopting a discursive or narrative approach, and focused on phenomenological approaches because it was the experience of these phenomena that was of primary interest to me. Grounded methods are suitable for studying lived-experience and an obvious first choice because of their popularity and prominence within the social sciences (Charmaz, 2008). However, it became clear that a phenomenological stance, and in particular IPA, was the most apposite for my purposes. It is an approach that is rooted in psychology and specifically tailored to examining specific instances of experience, particularly those relating to major life experiences and transitions (Brocki & Wearden, 2006), such as unemployment and mental health issues.

The selection of my methodological approach using IPA meant that this thesis is embedded in a particular set of ontological and epistemological assumptions (Bryman, 2012), and I have therefore adopted a particular view of the world and how to acquire knowledge of it. I am assuming that from participants' data it is possible to know something about their experience of being unemployed with mental health issues; specifically, that their experience can be understood by an examination of the meanings that they have ascribed to this experience (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009).

My research therefore makes specific knowledge claims about what it is like to be an unemployed graduate with mental health issues, and that my findings tell us some- thing meaningful about the social world we live in. A more detailed description of my deliberations and rationale for my choice of methodology, including a considera- tion of the different qualitative approaches and their relationship to IPA is given be- low.

4.4.4. Grounded Theory, Thematic Analysis and IPA

Grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) is a diverse collection of methods that has been used in different disciplines in the social sciences. These methods tend to focus on social processes rather than individual experience and meaning, although the approach can be used to investigate a wide range of subject matter, including experiential issues (Charmaz, 2008). Both grounded theory and IPA adopt an inductivist stance, which stresses the need to focus on what is actually in the data, rather than forcing it into a preconceived structure (Glaser, 1998). They also share the view that a researcher's world-view, interests, theoretical stance and interaction with participants all help to shape the research findings by influencing the content of the data that is collected and how it is analysed and interpreted (Charmaz, 2006). However, grounded theory differs from IPA in its aim to produce a more theoretical and explanatory account, by framing the analysis in terms of relationships, impacts and influences (Charmaz, 2006). My central concern, using IPA, was with understanding rather than explaining, although this went beyond a basic thematic analysis, as IPA offers an interpreted and conceptual account that represents a more integrated and coherent presentation of the subject matter under investigation (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009).

The increasing level of abstraction required in a grounded theory analysis is achieved through the iterative and concurrent processes of data collection and data analysis, and so the emerging conceptual structure or theory shapes what type of new data is collected (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009). The sampling of new cases is therefore theoretically driven – where the new data is gathered on the basis that it will provide further insight into the emerging theory – and is less concerned with obtaining a representative sample or increasing the generalisability of the results (Charmaz, 2008).

These objectives therefore require a larger sample with a strong emphasis on the comparison of individual cases, which is different to IPA's focus on a more detailed and nuanced account of specific and shared instances of lived experience in a small

sample of participants (Smith & Osborn, 2008). This does not necessarily mean that IPA is against making more generalised claims about a particular experience or phenomenon. However, it is cautious about making any abstract theoretical statement, and instead emphasises the primacy of an idiographic or 'micro' analytic approach, which attempts to find generalities within particular instances (Smith, 2007).

4.4.5. Discursive Approaches and IPA

The discursive approach to psychology was influenced by the linguistic turn and the postmodern ideas of philosophers such as Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, which have been discussed in the second section of this chapter. Potter and Wetherell (1987) developed a methodological approach based on these ideas that is more strongly rooted in constructivist approaches than IPA, and places a much stronger ontological and epistemological primacy on language and discourse (Smith, 1996). They developed analyses of how psychological phenomena (e.g., experience) are represented or constructed through discursive structures and the functions that these may serve (Potter & Wetherell, 1987).

IPA concurs with discursive methodological approaches by recognising the role of interpretative acts, contextual and socio-political factors in the research process (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009). However, as discussed above, its phenomenological perspective means that it also strives to go beyond the text; it looks beyond language and discourse by viewing language as a tool that the individual is free to draw on to convey their experience (Smith, 1996). This enables the researcher to attempt to directly connect with participants in their own terms, rather than understanding through the imposition of a priori theoretical constructs (Moran, 2000). The discursive approach challenges this viewpoint and dismisses the idea of an underlying reality that can be communicated. It instead highlights the structured, situational or political aspects of the relationship between researcher and participant, and contends that participants' verbal reports are more of a function of the context and demands of the social situation (Potter & Wetherell, 1987).

4.4.6. Narrative Analysis and IPA

IPA shares considerable overlapping interests with the aims of narrative analysis, as the central focus of IPA is individual understanding and meaning-making of lived experience, which is usually, although not always, achieved by the construction of a narrative (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009). Narrative researchers may be primarily interested in either the content (Crossley, 2000) or the structure (Gergen & Gergen, 1988) of people's stories in order to better understand human experience; however, it is the content-oriented approach that has most in common with IPA research (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009). For example, IPA studies may highlight changes or inconsistencies in participants' self-narratives as an important factor in their understanding and sense-making of their experience (Eatough & Smith, 2006).

4.4.7. Qualitative Approaches to Phenomenological Psychology and

IPA

There are numerous qualitative approaches to phenomenological research (e.g., Ashworth, 2003; Dahlberg, Dahlberg & Nystrom, 2008; Finlay, 2008; Giorgi, 1997; Langdridge, 2007; van Manen, 1990) and they have each formulated their own distinct approach by operationalising phenomenological ideas in different ways. These approaches all differ from one another in that they each have different research objectives and aims (e.g., an approach may be more interpretative, rather than descriptive) that privilege a particular set of ideas or a particular philosopher over the others (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009).

For example, descriptive phenomenological approaches conceive the researcher to be merely an observer who simply witnesses participants’ experiences and objectively documents them (Barbour, 2007). IPA can be clearly distinguished from these other approaches by its research goals and its unique combination of phenomenological, hermeneutic and idiographic features. It has utilised a broader strain of thought, by drawing on a range of philosophical and theoretical ideas, rather than attempting to operationalise a specific version of one of these (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009).

4.4.8. Section Summary

In the third and final section of this chapter, I have explained the rationale for selecting a qualitative and phenomenological approach using IPA. This involved a consideration of alternative qualitative methodological approaches and their relationship to IPA so that I could provide a clear justification for my choice. IPA is consistent with the purpose of the research and the epistemological position that is inherent in the research question. It therefore offers a set of methods and techniques that enables the subject matter to be addressed, and thereby acquire the knowledge assumed to be possible in the epistemological stance of the research question.

4.5. Chapter Summary

In this chapter, I have given an explanatory account of my methodological approach using IPA. I have discussed the theoretical background and objectives of IPA, which draws together a unique combination of phenomenological, hermeneutic and idiographic tenets into a distinct methodological mode of enquiry towards conducting qualitative psychological research. I have also described my epistemological position by explicating the underlying assumptions that IPA makes, and explained my rationale for adopting this particular approach. This chapter's broad consideration of these methodological issues has laid the basis in understanding necessary for moving on to describe the method and data-analysis process, which I have described in the next chapter.

5. Chapter Five: Method and Data-Analysis