Analysis Of Jonathan Smith's Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

A scholarly exploration involves the employment of a research approach. In the qualitative side of the research method spectrum, there exists a multitude of approaches (Willig, 2008). From this pool of choices, I decided that for my research project, I will employ Jonathan Smith’s Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (abbreviated as IPA). As an approach, IPA aims to produce an understanding of the sensemaking involved in people’s lived experiences (Birkbeck University of London, 2015; Smith & Osborn, 2008). Through the employment of IPA as the research approach, I expect that a thorough understanding of the defeminization phenomenon will be achieved. My expectation is grounded on the fact that IPA draws its strength as a framework from philosophical and methodological underpinnings that I deemed appropriate or fitting for the exploration of my research topic. These underpinnings are as follows: phenomenology, hermeneutics, idiography, induction, eidetic reduction, transcendental reduction, cognitive paradigm, symbolic interactionism, critical realism, and social cognition paradigm (Fade, 2004; Smith & Osborn, 2008; Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009).

IPA as Phenomenological IPA is theoretically underpinned by

The inductive approach involves the formulation of generalizations, propositions, or theories out of the extracted patterns, consistencies, and meanings that a researcher has extracted from the gathered data (Gray, 2015; Gabriel, 2013; Weitzman, n.d.). This is opposed to the use of data for confirmation and debunking of theories and conceptions involved in the deductive approach (Gabriel, 2013; Weitzman, n.d.). As such, induction is considered as the ideal approach to exploring novel and underresearched phenomena (Gabriel, 2013). Even in well-researched topics, induction proves its usefulness by permitting the emergence of unanticipated and unpredicted findings (Griffiths,