Within the approach of qualitative, interpretive research, phenomenology is a theoretical approach that focuses on the study of direct or immediate experience, places importance on subjective consciousness, and views behaviour as determined by the phenomena of experience (Cohen et al., 2007, p. 22). It has been described as focussing on “the pre- reflective level of consciousness” (Marton, 1981). The lifeworld or everyday world that we live in, that is “already there”, with all its “taken-for-granted” attitude, without being obstructed by pre-conceptions and theoretical notions, is the world of lived or immediate experience which is central to phenomenology:
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Phenomenology is a theoretical point of view that advocates the study of direct experience taken at face value; and one which sees behaviour as determined by the phenomena of experience rather than by external, objective and physically described reality (English & English, 1958).
The alignment between the interpretivist paradigm and the framing theory of understanding curriculum phenomenologically will serve to reinforce the emphasis on human perception and experience to reveal complexities, an approach that is virtually indistinguishable from hermeneutics (Willis, 1991, p. 179). The notion of understanding, for phenomenologists, is an interpretive, hermeneutical one that requires phenomenological enquiry.
Phenomenology takes expressed accounts of individuals at “face value”: these may be concrete, even naïve expressions of experience, whose meanings are then drawn out through a process of adopting a phenomenological attitude and employing a process of phenomenological reflection (Willig, 2007, p. 210).
It has been said that phenomenology is most aptly characterised by the descriptor
“thoughtfulness”; research undertaken is the conscious practice of “thoughtfulness” (M Van Manen, 1984). It is with this degree of caring, empathy and cautious sensitivity that I explored and developed meanings from lived experiences, in a manner that is very carefully attuned to the lifeworld that is being investigated.
No “explanations” or “causes” are typically identified in phenomenological analysis, but rather there is a cautious presentation of what seem to be the essential features of the experience, as lived through by the participants in that specific context; “plausible interpretations” or possible “insights” may be expressed, to deepen understandings (Holloway & Todres, 2003).
Phenomenology is interested in elucidating both that which appears and the manner in which it appears. It studies the subjects’ perspectives of their world’
attempts to describe in detail the content and structure of the subjects’
consciousness, to grasp the qualitative diversity of their experiences and to explicate their essential meanings (Kvale, 1996, p. 53).
According to Willis (1991, pp. 173-174), phenomenological enquiry is a form of interpretive enquiry which focuses on human perception and the distinctly human experience of individual people; it “results in descriptions of such perceptions, which appear directly to
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the perceptions of other people”, particularly on the aesthetic qualities of human experience. Consciousness becomes significant for the phenomenologist as it relates to the
“multiple ways” in which events, others and objects are presented, “through the distinctly human processes of perceiving, judging, believing, remembering and imagining” (Pinar et al., 2002, p. 406). Greene (1973) described the phenomenological consciousness as
“experienced context”. Phenomenology is founded on first-order experience, the “lived, basic or foundational” life experience to reflect an “insider’s experience”. Aoki explains the central interest as “communicative understanding of meanings given by people who live within the situation. The rules for the understanding of meaning are constructed actively by those who dwell within the situation” (Aoki, 1988, p. 411).
The phenomenological researcher asks how phenomena, such as the experience of curriculum or curriculum change, present themselves in the immediate lived experience of the individual, in lived time (Pinar et al., 2002). The phenomenological concept refers to the
“experienced context” or “lifeworld”, as well as focusing upon the biographic situation, an approach which reflects my personal agency in the study (M Van Manen, 1982). On the use of such an approach in curriculum studies, Pinar comments that “working phenomenologically is rigorous; it requires a profound sense of what is competent and practical in educational conduct, and it requires a sense of political consequence” (Pinar, 1994).
In using the methodological orientation of phenomenological enquiry, the “disciplined, rigorous effort” required to understand experience “profoundly and authentically“ has been applied (Pinar et al., 2002, p. 405).
The knowledge claim of phenomenology is about the primacy of experience:
“(Phenomenology) seeks a transcending theoretical understanding that goes beyond lived experience to situate it, to judge it, to comprehend it, endowing lived experience with new meaning” (R. Burch, 1989). The use of the “first person-insider” perspective provides an
“experience-near” contextual orientation, in which the terms of reference of the participants themselves are used (Terre Blanche & Durrheim, 1999). “[L]ived experience is the starting point and the end point of phenomenological research” (M Van Manen, 1978, p.
369).
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According to Schmitt (1967), phenomenology aims to explicate the “essences” of the phenomenon, by which is meant the general, necessary and invariant features of the object of study. Curtis (1978) identified the following distinguishing features of the phenomenological viewpoint:
a belief in the importance, and in a sense the primacy, of subjective consciousness;
an understanding of consciousness as active, as meaning-bestowing;
a claim that there are certain essential structures of consciousness of which we gain direct knowledge by a certain kind of reflection: exactly what these structures are is a point about which phenomenologists have differed (Curtis, 1978, Introduction).
Essential elements of phenomenology have been postulated as: “lifeworld” and the lived experience; consciousness of the presence of things in the world; intentionality or the
“inseparable connectedness of the human being to the world;” reduction, to discover the essential pre-theoretical understanding of a phenomenon; and essence, or the essential meaning of a thing (Mostert, 2002).
Several approaches to phenomenological research and analysis are evident in the literature:
there is the descriptive pre-transcendental Husserlian-type version (Giorgi, 2000); the structured approach of Collaizzi (1978); the more hermeneutic versions of van Manen (1990) and Packer and Addison (M. Packer, Addison, & 1989), and more recently, Giorgi and Giorgi’s interpretive phenomenology (2003). Interpretive Phenomenology is concerned not only with “how things appear”, but also with how phenomena “come to show themselves to us” (Willig, 2007, p. 221). In preference to adopting the strict prescription of a “Husserlian”
position, where the researcher “puts the world in brackets” using a form of epoche, to reduce consciousness in order to free us from all preconceptions about the world, I have attempted to engage the view of Schutz (1962). By closely examining the stream of lived experiences of the participants, it is possible
to impute meaning to them retrospectively, by the process of turning back on oneself and looking at what has been going on. In other words, meaning can be accounted for in this way by the concept of reflexivity…the attribution of meaning is dependent on the people identifying the purpose or goal they seek (Schutz, 1962, p. 112).
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This approach, in which meaning is attributed reflexively from an unbroken stream of lived experiences, accords better with my sense of my inextricable involvement with legal education, working reflexively to make meaning out of the “stream of lived experiences” as described by the participants as they recounted their subjective lived experiences. It also resonated with the multiple realities that exist in the world in which we live and the emphasis on subjective consciousness within the phenomenological orientation. Allowing iterative reflection to deepen meaning and add layers of complexity, working between the direct expressions of the participants, using their terms and expressions, and my own growing and increasingly nuanced understanding of the phenomenon being studied all reflected this interactive exchange. This process simultaneously cohered with the demands of my methodology and my purpose in the study of developing a richly textured appreciation of the phenomenon under review (Cohen et al., 2007).
In this study, I have chosen to adopt the particular style of interpretive phenomenology, employing a self-consciously interpretive, hermeneutic approach that goes beyond the constraints of a merely descriptive rendition. In order to “move from content to structure”, and to reveal the underlying meaning and assumptions beneath the summary of the participants’ statements, I have attempted to develop a synthesis which integrates the themes, “in some kind of story line” (Willig, 2007). This was done by linking the themes together into a coherent rendition of sequential events, joined by explanatory commentary that made overall sense of participants’ disparate statements. A new genre of qualitative research, used predominantly in psychology and the health sciences, known as Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) (J A Smith & Osborn, 2009), aims to understand and “give voice” to the concerns of the participants, as well as to contextualise and “make sense” of their claims (from a psychological perspective) in the interpretation of the data. I have drawn on some of the theoretical rationale underlying this approach, common to all phenomenology, in interpreting and contextualising the data in both of the data sets comprising Law Deans (Task Group and Current Law Deans).
The truth of an event is subjective and knowable only through the embodied perception of individuals, which is closely examined by phenomenologists to capture the meaning and common features, or essences of experiences or events (Starks & Brown Trinidad, 2007, p.
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1374). Van Manen recommended the following methodological structure for hermeneutic (interpretive) phenomenology:
i) turn to a phenomenon that seriously interests the researcher and commits us to the world;
ii) investigate the experience as it is lived rather than as it is conceptualised;
iii) reflect on the essential themes which characterise the phenomenon;
iv) describe the phenomenon through the art of writing and re-writing;
v) maintain a strong and oriented pedagogical relation to the phenomenon;
vi) balance the research context by considering parts and whole (M Van Manen, 1997, p. 361).
These structured stages match very closely my interest in and the procedures followed in my researching the phenomenon of curriculum change and implementation. My interest in the undergraduate law curriculum and curriculum change is of serious personal interest to me. I have sought to explore the Deans’ lived experiences through the elicitation of the data, reflecting over and over on the themes raised by them, and then writing and re- writing my interpretation of the data. My orientation to the phenomenon of curriculum is strongly pedagogically related because of my daily work as a lecturer, and I have attempted to balance the research context by considering parts of the data, through individual transcripts, against the whole, the entire set of transcripts. This phenomenological tradition of qualitative research was thus well suited to achieving the purpose of the study and in answering the first research question.
It was then necessary to consider the ways in which interviews are used to elicit data in this tradition.
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