Knowing and doing phenomenology: The implications of the critique of ‘nursing phenomenology’ for a phenomenological inquiry: A discussion paper

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Abstract

Phenomenological research in nursing has come under sustained attack in recent years with some nurse researchers accused of betraying the fundamental tenets of phenomenology and of misconstruing its key concepts. This paper aims to show how a study informed by the critique of ‘nursing phenomenology’ was designed and conducted. In particular, the implications of the key phenomenological concepts of intentionality and bracketing for data collection, data analysis and the presentation of findings are explored in relation to an investigation of the concept of the Clinical Placement Coordinator (CPC), an innovative student support role in Irish nursing education. The paper shows how an understanding of the key phenomenological notions of bracketing and intentionality, and careful consideration of their implications for research design and conduct, can enrich nursing research by retaining the objectivity and critique central to the phenomenological method. The illumination and clarification of contested and complex concepts can be achieved by encouraging both researcher and co-researchers to get ‘back to the things themselves’ by taking a fresh unprejudiced look at the necessary and sufficient elements of phenomena of interest to nursing as they appear to those who experience them.

Introduction

Michael Crotty's book, Phenomenology and Nursing Research, published in 1996, took nurse researchers to task for misinterpreting and misusing the methodology and methods of phenomenology (Barkway, 2001). Since then phenomenological nursing research has been the target of sustained criticism for, inter alia: detaching key philosophical notions from phenomenological methodology (Yegdich, 2000); misunderstanding the key concepts of Husserlian phenomenology, resulting in an incoherent research programme centred on gathering subjects’ naïve accounts of phenomena (Paley, 1997; Yegdich, 2000); and misinterpreting Heidegger's notion of being-in-the-world to create a genre of ‘lived experience research’ in which individuals’ subjective accounts of the external world are treated as sacrosanct while questions of their correspondence with an underlying reality are disregarded (Paley 1998).

In short, nurse researchers stand accused of having ‘done phenomenology without knowing phenomenology’ (Porter, 1998, p. 18). Crotty (1996) offers a method for those wishing to avoid the reverse error of ‘knowing phenomenology without doing phenomenology’ (Yegdich, 2000, p. 31). Caelli (2001) expresses surprise at the general lack of literature providing concrete advice for addressing the technical aspects of conducting a phenomenological study, while Darbyshire et al. (1999) note the absence of studies based on Crotty's specific approach and speculate about what they might look like. This paper explores how the critique of phenomenological nursing research was used to inform a research project, the aim of which was to illuminate the necessary and sufficient elements of the role of the Clinical Placement Coordinator (CPC), an innovative student support role in Irish nursing education. The account focuses in particular on the implications of a sound understanding of the notions of bracketing and intentionality for the research process.

Section snippets

The clinical placement coordinator

CPCs were introduced to Irish nursing education on a temporary and phased basis from 1994 in order to provide support to nursing students on clinical placement. The first CPCs attempted to forge a unique role without role models or international precedent (Drennan, 2002). Conceptual confusion continues to surround the role and poses particular challenges for CPCs as they endeavour to develop their student support function in the context of the recent introduction of the Bachelor of Science

Delineating the research focus

The aim of this study was to illuminate the phenomenon of the CPC as revealed in and through the experiences of CPCs themselves; it was not to explore CPCs’ lived experiences as such. First-person accounts of how phenomena manifest to experiencing subjects are of interest for what they tell us about what is experienced. Subjects must be led back to their accounts again and again, all the time interrogating them to see what they reveal about the sine qua non, the essential elements that make a

The phenomenological method

Moran (2002) describes phenomenology as a way of seeing, ‘the unprejudiced, descriptive study of whatever appears to consciousness, precisely in the manner in which it so appears’ (p. 1). Phenomenology endeavours to take a fresh look at phenomena uncontaminated by a priori common sense or scientific impositions. The aim is to capture the richness of a phenomenon as it manifests to the subject who experiences it (Moran, 2000, Moran, 2002).

At the heart of the phenomenological approach is a

Research design

This critique challenges nurse researchers to design projects that respect rather than betray the fundamental tenets of the phenomenological method. The key concepts of bracketing and intentionality have important implications for the selection of participants, for methods of data collection and analysis as well as for the nature of the research outcomes and the manner in which they are represented.

Findings

The critique of nursing phenomenology has implications for the nature of the research product and its representation. In this study, the findings were presented as distinct textural-structural descriptions of each co-researcher's experience of and in the role. The aim was to demonstrate how the essential elements of the phenomenon of ‘clinical placement co-ordination’ were genuinely grounded in co-researchers’ sustained contemplation of the role as revealed to them in and through their everyday

Discussion

Darbyshire et al. (1999) criticise Crotty's approach as irredeemably “self-referential and ‘I’ centred” (p. 23), missing his important point that phenomenological inquiry is inevitably a first-person exercise. The researcher, by utilizing particular techniques of questioning, must facilitate an in-depth exploration of the phenomenon by those who have experienced it. This mandates that co-researchership ‘be a genuine feature of the process for it to be phenomenological research at all’ (Crotty,

Conclusion

The critique of nursing phenomenology challenges nurse researchers to reconsider the goals of phenomenological research and the methods they choose to achieve them. While Crotty is careful not to dismiss the potential significance for nurses of studies into participants’ subjective understandings of experiences, he and other scholars are adamant that it is simply not possible to legitimate such research with reference to key phenomenological concepts.

An appreciation of the key concepts of

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