Hermeneutic phenomenology is an approach traditionally used in nursing and health but which is now seeing more pick up in other human-centred disciplines including pyschology, education and sociology. It explores individuals' lived experience and considers how this can be used to understand motivation and engagement. Many of the books in this space are extremely dense and focus on the philosophy and theory rather than applied practice. They also tend to be self-referential and inward facing; they do not try to make the field accessible to new researchers and students. This book is designed to be used by MA and PhD students as well as by early career academics who need an easy introduction to best practice. The authors set out the advantages and disadvantages of the methodology using real world (published) case studies. The book carefully combines philosophy, methodology and method. The key philosophers of phenomenology are presented and explored, and the translation of philosophy into research theory is explained by experienced hermeneutic phenomenological researchers. They then demonstrate explicit ways in which the methodology underpins researchers' choices and how this is translated when designing hermeneutic studies. The book is structured around the research process with chapters mapping each step from design all the way through to dissemination. It will take students step-by-step through their research projects as well as helping them to critique their own work and research output from other scholars. There has been a resurgence in publishing hermeneutic phenomenological titles with three new competitor titles publishing in recent years. One of these titles ties theory to practice but it is still very philosophical and is not a teaching text - the author includes high level discussions of complex research and assumes significant prior knowledge. We don't have much in this space, there is an Inc title Cohen et al. Hermeneutic Phenomenological Research (2000), and several books with chapters covering this topic. The proposed book is much more focused than Smith's Interpretative Phenomenological bestseller but it fills a gap in our coverage.

Literature Review and Refining the Hermeneutic Question

Literature Review and Refining the Hermeneutic Question

  • The Essential Purpose of the Literature Search and Review 34
    • Developing the literature review question 34
    • Identifying search terms 35
    • Limiters 36
    • Demonstrating thoroughness 38
    • Critiquing the selected literature 39
  • How the Literature Search and Review Differ in Hermeneutic Phenomenological Research 40
  • The Researcher as the Source of the Question 43
  • Developing and Refining the Research Question 45
  • Beyond the Research Question 47
  • Further Resources 48

Chapter Overview

In this chapter, we describe the importance of setting up a study so that the phenomenon of interest is addressed particularly and the gaze is thrust in such a way that an in-depth interpretive analysis is possible. Seeking to gather and understand the breadth of available information associated with the phenomenon of interest allows the researcher to dwell in the ...

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