Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Myriads of scholarly sources have studied various aspects of being a bodhisattva; yet few of them look into the practicability of the bodhisattva path in the modern era.  The present research discusses the notion of what a bodhisattva is, and investigates the Buddhist understanding of this concept and its praxis in a contemporary social context.  This study has adopted primary data sources which were produced by means of a mixed method, including a canonical analysis of the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa Sūtra, and qualitative fieldwork data, together with other first-hand data sources.  Canonical analysis has provided the theoretical discourse from the Mahāyāna perspective, focusing on the idea of prajñā; while the qualitative data, which were derived from interviews, validate the applicability of the theoretical discourse, namely, bodhisattva-mārga (the bodhisattva path).  The 46 interview sessions with individuals and focus groups involved Buddhist volunteers, helping service practitioners, beneficiaries, and Buddhist masters (totally 38 participants), who were recruited by cold calls, snowball effect, acquaintances, and electronic mailing.  The interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed for analysis through the paradigm of interpretative phenomenological analysis, in order to explore the informants’ lived experiences. In addition, this study was also supported by multiple sources, including visual art.  Ensuring the research rigour, different forms of triangulation were employed, covering member checking and peer analysis at an inter-rater reliability of 92%.  With the aid of ATLAS.ti 7, a computer-assisted software for qualitative data analysis which was used for both the canonical and the interview analyses, eight themes were grouped together, including bodhisattva, bodhicitta, catvāri apramānāni, roles, praxis, qualities, intensions, and causes of sickness, from which self-benefiting altruism (altruistic activities and other forms of help performed towards other people which result in benefit to oneself), representing what is referred to here as the bodhisattva spirit.  This research further differentiates between self-benefiting altruism and reciprocal altruism, reflecting the philosophical disparities in diverse cultures.  Therefore, it offers potential insight into Buddhist helping behaviour that contributes to the well-being of sentient individuals and the society.

Empirical research within critical psychology is strongly associated with the use of qualitative methods. In the field of qualitative psychology a distinction can be made between experiential and critical approaches (Braun & Clarke, 2012a, Reicher, 2000), both of which involve some kind of critique of mainstream psychology. Experiential approaches aim to capture participants’ experiences and perspectives and ground research in participants’ accounts, rather than researcher’s categories, but view language as a reflection of “internal categories of understanding” (Reicher, 2000: 3), and so assume it is possible to ‘read off’ participants’ thoughts, feelings and practices from their use of language. By contrast, critical approaches challenge what experiential approaches have in common with mainstream psychology – the assumption that language is only of interest as a description of inner states. Critical approaches (usually some version of discourse analysis) understand and analyse language as something that is constitutive, rather than reflective, of our social and psychological words, as a form of social action. One of the most common qualitative methods is (some form of) thematic analysis (TA); however, there is debate about whether TA is an experiential or a critical approach, and thus an appropriate analytic method for critical psychology.

Background: Local government as the sphere of government that directly impacts the lives of communities must create a milieu of interacting with communities in terms of planning, execution and the monitoring and evaluation of the success or failure of its programmes. Local government has a moral and a legislative duty to involve communities thereby extending and deepening democratic and accountable government processes.Aim: This study aimed to analyse how democratic and accountable governance can assist in creating sustainable processes of involvement of its communities. Local government is government’s main contributor to the socio-economic growth and development, not only of a country but more so, its people. The article emphasises improvement in the current processes of community involvement in strategic planning and the execution of such plans in general and at the city of Ekurhuleni (COE) in particular. It further aims to indicate to the city that its processes are not taking i...

Introduction: The presence of a child with a specific learning disability in the family who needs care and has special educational problems is a source of stress for mothers, affecting their mental health and adjustment. This study aimed to explore the lived experiences of mothers of children with specific learning disability (SLD). Methods: This qualitative study was conducted using a phenomenological approach. The participants were 14 mothers of children with specific learning disability (SLD) whose data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The participants were selected using purposive sampling and the collected data were analyzed via Colaizzi's method of data analysis. Results: Analysis of the data revealed 4 main themes including “impact on family”, “the mother’s life”, “the student’s problems”, “concerns”, and “needs”, and 14 subthemes. Conclusion: The present study showed that specific learning disability has diverse effects on the child, mother, and family,...

Many secondary music students graduate from school and stop being actively involved in making music in the community. This is frustrating for music educators who have watched their journey of musical development and then discover it came to a sudden end once they leave the school. One of the goals of a music teacher is to develop a love of music that will enable lifelong learning. Five students who have been taught by the researcher discuss issues and events that have led to their passion for music making lasting beyond the secondary school experience. Their musical experiences provided such a positive impact on them that not only did they pursue musical activities beyond school, but also discussed that they would not consider ceasing musical engagement until the end of their lives. Their relationship with music and their friends who share a similar passion has provided them all with a sense of musical identity. They are musicians and they hope they always will be. The formation of personal, musical identity and social musical identity is critical in the process of students seeing themselves as lifelong, active participants in music. Identity and the impact that this had on their decision to remain actively engaged with music will be explored. Implications for the research will include providing secondary music students with a variety of musical activities that includes collaboration with outside ensembles to support the development of personal and social, musical identity.

Numbers to narratives; a journey through the epistemological landscape.
Conflicts ignite due to complex and contested motives; statistics tell us of the breadth of casualties and scope of cleavages, but they don’t tell us why peace agreements breakdown. Statistics tell us a “how many story”, which leaves out hidden answers and elaborate agendas.  Qualitative analysis is in its ascendancy but which method suits the topic?  Can bias really be bracketed; are researchers able to bracket off their own feelings and opinions? 
This presentation is an insight into the epistemological shift necessary to take when engaging in Interpretative phenomenological analysis, from now on described as IPA.  It is also an acknowledgement of the flexible nature of statistics and how they can be used as a subjective tool in mixed method analysis.
The focus of this presentation is divided into two parts: The argument for more interpretative phenomenological analysis research in politics, peace studies and international relations and, secondly, details of the research being undertaken as a case study to further prove the need for and explain the methodological stance necessary for IPA.
The research has three strands, which will be drawn together to create the main body of work:  firstly what is reconciliation? There are varying academic accounts proposing what reconciliation is as a concept; this research will draw on the recognized and examined aspects of the concept and aims to build on this prior research using ‘The Reconciliation Pyramid’ (Auerbach, 2009).  Secondly participant narratives; who tells the stories, which frame the continued animosity and violent flare ups in Northern Ireland?  There are three intertwining, yet contested, narratives regarding Northern Ireland, told from three perspectives. What are these narratives, who identifies with them and is there any room for integration between these narratives? Finally can the participants be located on the Pyramid? The Pyramid will be used as a framework to investigate where the participants believe their respective communities can be placed.  The Pyramid is a clear representation of the phases adversaries must pass on their way to reconciliation at its apex.

Ronald Dworkin and Duncan Kennedy represent arguably two opposing poles in legal theory. This paper offers a novel frame for reading their respective legal theories which reconceptualizes the traditional way in which they were opposed, and new ways to compare them, to understand their commonalities and their differences.

While Dworkin is taken to be a champion of a theory of rights, he is also associated with a certain theory of interpretation which holds that even in hard cases judges have limited discretion and a right answer to every legal question we might reasonably encounter. Kennedy, in contrast, seems to disagree with Dworkin in every conceivable respect such as the nature of law and legal reasoning, the role of right, the relation of law to its outsides (politics/ideology), thus questioning the objectivity and neutrality of legal reasoning, and he seems to be advocating what could be termed as a “radical indeterminacy” thesis.

The paper attempts reading Dworkin and Kennedy alongside each other, rather than in opposition, and so it deploys two interrelated strategies to establish such frame. One is concerned softening what appear to be rigid opposition through scrutinizing their writings, whereas the other takes stock of the common themes, presuppositions, images of law, and sensibilities that both share either explicitly or implicitly. This double strategy reveals the arguments that are attributed to them and which they themselves deny they are making. To that end, the paper unveils an unacknowledged shift toward phenomenology in legal theory that took place in the last few decades.

Improving municipal service delivery and getting communities involved in municipal planning processes by way of participatory budgeting (PB), in particular in the integrated development plan (IDP) and the annual budgeting process, form the basis of this study. The study focuses, in general, on the service delivery challenges of local government, and specifically in the City of Ekurhuleni (COE). The empirical analysis of the research consists of the lived experiences of people living in the COE.
The dual guiding research question that is addressed focuses on how service delivery challenges can be addressed through PB in the COE by using phenomenology to provide insights to the lived experiences of community members.
This qualitative study follows a qualitative approach consisting of unobtrusive methods and an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) in terms of an inductive logical process that guided the data collection, analysis and the interpretation thereof.  The basis of the primary data entailed the outcomes of 20 semi-structured personal interviews with a homogeneous group of people who find themselves at the lower economic-strata within the COE.  The researcher followed the data analysis process as proposed by IPA in order to co-produce with participants’ deeper meanings and interpretations of their lived experience concerning their poor or no service delivery from the COE.  The search for deeper meaning from the obtained rich data enabled the researcher to extrapolate themes that led to the development of subordinate themes and consequently, a third level of interpretation in terms of superordinate themes.  The five developed superordinate themes were then applied to the theoretical framework to shed greater light to the nomothetic research. 
This study provided recommendations for improved service delivery mechanisms whereby the COE, with the involvement of its citizenry can contribute to PB. This means that the city will have to review all its organisational processes, policies and practices to involve communities to reduce the number of service delivery protests, since people will only participate to the extent that they believe that they are taken serious.

In the article the description of secondary memory in Husserl's phenomenology is given. The difference between the reproductive memory and the primary memory is shown. The author analyses  the meaning of secondary memory for the process of consciousness, the role of  uncondiciousness in the process of organization the memory, modes of the memory, theirs role and effect for present. The structures of secondary memory are shown in the relation with now-point.

Successful Qualitative Research: A Practical Guide for Beginners is an accessible, practical textbook. It sidesteps detailed theoretical discussion in favour of providing a comprehensive overview of strategic tips and skills for starting and completing successful qualitative research. Uniquely, the authors provide a 'patterns framework' to qualitative data analysis in this book, also known as 'thematic analysis'. The authors walk you through a basic thematic approach, and compare and contrast this with other approaches. This discussion of commonalities, explaining why and when each method should be used, and in the context of looking at patterns, will provide you with complete confidence for your qualitative research journey.

(From the back cover) Looking for a practical, comprehensive overview of qualitative research methods? Want to know the best approach to take for you and your research project?

Analysing Qualitative Data in Psychology takes you through five different qualitative approaches - thematic analysis, interpretative phenomenological analysis, grounded theory, narrative analysis and discourse analysis. Applying them all to a common data set, this book gives you step-by-step guidance on each approach and helps you work out which is the right one for you.

Plus, with a whole new part on qualitative data collection - including chapters on interviewing, social media data and visual methodologies - and an extensive set of online resources, this new edition is the ultimate resource for students engaged in qualitative psychological research or studying methods at any level.

https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/analysing-qualitative-data-in-psychology/book268665

The concept of ‘core category’ is most associated with the grounded theory method developed by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss but has been utilised in relation to other qualitative methods such as phenomenology. The terminology varies and a core category may sometimes be referred to or indexed as core theme, core meaning, core variable, or central category. A core category is the main theme, story-line, or process which subsumes and integrates all lower-level categories in a grounded theory, encapsulates the data efficiently at the most abstract level, and is the category with the strongest explanatory power......

At the heart of this article is a fairly straightforward assertion: that literature has a trans-verbal level at which it affects us as a work of art. Hence discussing a novel means bringing to the fore not only its overt narrative function but also its covert artistic function: a consideration of the work in light of its aesthetic intention. Following the phenomenological traditions of Roman Ingarden and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, I argue that aesthetic intention does not determine the significance of the art object, which is presumed to be dynamic within a spectrum of meanings. Rather, aesthetic intention takes into account the circumstance of the novel having been actuated into form by an " artistic gesture. " This " gesture " is not physical: it is a metaphorical motion referring to the artist's actuation of an aesthetic intention using one or another medium to give an artwork its perceivable form. In painting, this " gesture " can sometimes be traced through a work's visible brushstrokes or formal composition, but in literature such " gestures " can appear beyond the literal text and remain invisible even while they are experienced in the literary work. The conception of such a " gesture " is meant to incorporate the insights of literary and aesthetic theory, along with poststructuralism, in a critique that allows for structural analysis to also pursue a reconstituted significance. What appears below is more a program of the problem than a full treatment of its implications – a stretching of the canvas, so to speak. But I believe that the articulation of this kernel has a value in itself even if the full unraveling of the subject is yet to come.

While it is assumed that persons with dementia benefit from being involved in meaningful activity, research examining this claim is limited. In particular, how individuals with dementia perceive this involvement is poorly understood. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to determine what constitutes meaningful activity from the perspective of persons with dementia, and to explore how they perceive its significance in their lives. We conducted an interpretive phenomenological analysis of multiple interviews and participant observation conducted with eight community-dwelling elders with mild to moderate dementia. For several participants, the single most important driving force in their lives was being active, doing as much as they possibly could. They were involved in a wide range of activities including leisure pastimes, household chores, work-related endeavors, and social involvements. These activities were meaningful in three ways: Through their involvement, participants experienced feelings of pleasure and enjoyment; felt a sense of connection and belonging; and retained a sense of autonomy and personal identity. Findings suggest that familiarity of the social and physical environment promotes involvement in activities. This provides a sense of continuity for people with dementia, with implications for their quality of life and personhood. Further implications of these findings for dementia care and future research are discussed.

“Introduction to longing-for”. History of Be-ing and the problem of repetition.

Through this text we aim to intimate a possible interpretation
of the later Heideggerian Philosophy. We would like to suggest that Be-ing (Seyn) for Heidegger is in fact “something” unrepeatable, if not the unrepeatable itself. For legitimating this thought we are following Heidegger’s concept of repetition, Wieder(-)holung. The Heideggerian concept of repetition has its ground in understanding  Be-ing as something that cannot be understood through a recapitulation of its marks in the History of Philosophy, but it can be experienced as the unrepeatable as such through an originary hermeneutical repetition (seynsgeschichtliches Wieder-holung). The next defining step is toput in question a way of experiencing the irrepeatable as
such. Following Heidegger’s example of conceiving the nothing (as the veil o being) by appealing to a fundamental mood, anxiety (Angst), we will attempt to grasp the structure of the unrepeatable by analyzing the distinctive mood of longing-for (Sehnsucht).

The thesis of my paper is that the current “debate” between “descriptive” and “interpretive” modes of doing phenomenology is based largely on a misguided understanding of the meaning of these terms as they are used in the philosophical literature; and that these two adjectives have taken on a life of their own, in the “socially constructed” use of these terms, especially within the group called the International Human Science Research Conference (IHSRC).  Berger & Luckmann (1966) indicated that terms such as these might be thought of as “conceptual machineries of universe-maintenance” (p 104). Within the IHSRC, these terms have been used at first informally, and now in a more political manner, for differentiating “camps” within human science research.  Walsh & Koelsch (2012) have referred to “qualitative fault lines” within the field, which I agree can do more harm than good:  When they set up false boundaries in the work itself of conducting research, then the concern for whether one’s work qualifies as “descriptive” versus “interpretative” becomes problematic and even counterproductive. Through reference to the writings of Husserl and Heidegger on the themes of description and interpretation, we will attempt to sort through the issues at stake when engaging in phenomenological research, and to place in linguistic context what the terms "description" and "interpretation" mean when used in reference to qualitative research (as well as in reference to phenomenology and psychoanalysis).

El suscrito ejerce la docencia en asignaturas de investigación científica a nivel de posgrado. Por esta razón decidí elaborar la “Infografía: Métodos y técnicas de investigación cualitativa”, basado en Vargas (2011). La infografía ha sido diseñada haciendo uso de Canva, una herramienta informática online.
La infografía elaborada tiene el objetivo de presentar de manera clara y ordenada los diversos métodos y técnicas que se pueden dentro del enfoque de la investigación cualitativa. Este material educativo permite además que los estudiantes amplíen la información sobre los métodos y las técnicas a través de los enlaces respectivos.
La primera parte de la infografía expresa el tema; en la segunda parte se conceptualiza sobre los métodos y técnicas hermenéuticos-interpretativos; y, en la tercera parte se presentan los diversos métodos tanto de manera textual como simbólica.
En la cuarta parte se expresa el acápite de las técnicas; en la quinta parte se muestra las distintas técnicas cuualitativas; y, en la sexta parte, a manera de pie de infografía se cita la fuente de la que se tomó la propuesta teórica sobre el tema.

The task of studying the impact of social class on physical and mental health involves, among other things, the use of a conceptual toolbox that defines what social class is, establishes how to measure it, and sets criteria that help distinguish it from closely related concepts. One field that has recently witnessed a wealth of theoretical and conceptual research on social class is psychology, but geographers' and sociologists' attitude of diffidence toward this " positivistic " discipline has prevented them from taking advantage of this body of scholarship. This paper aims to highlight some of the most important developments in the psychological study of social class and social mobility that speak to the long-standing concerns of health geographers and sociologists with how social position, perceptions, social comparisons, and class-based identities impact health and well-being.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.11.037

In the literary tradition covering more than two and a half thousand years, philosophy has been frequently mentioned in close proximity to literature, often as different ways of engaging more or less the same activity. We shall look at this matter briefly in the paper. What is not often said, even though many would probably not object to the idea is that literary criticism is a philosophical, rather than a scientific discipline, insofar as it is exercised by the need to understand, lacking the means to explain the phenomenon it is faced with. Three things really are at issue here: literature, literary studies/criticism, and philosophy. There are interrelationships among them, which is why some of the most important works relevant to the study of literary phenomena are by philosophers, normally the very greatest ones among them. We will not be exploring this history in detail, but only the engendering of literary criticism as a result of the philosophical interest in the literary, of which Plato and Aristotle were apparently the first to devote to it sustained attention. But we shall find that evolution and change within the history of criticism have been by following, sometimes without a conscious decision, the methods of reflection inaugurated in Aristotelian metaphysics in which philosophy is established as the knowledge of things through their ultimate causes.

Homicide is the most newsworthy of all crimes. Yet not all homicides are reported equally: some
receive extensive coverage while others receive little or none. Qualitative questionnaires, completed
by ten UK national tabloid journalists, explored the criteria that determine the newsworthiness of
homicide. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis revealed that, with certain exceptions, homicides
involving ‘perfect’ victims, statistically deviant features, killers on the run, sensational elements
and/or serial killers will almost always be newsworthy, while those involving ‘undeserving’
victims in commonplace circumstances will almost always not. However, analysis further revealed
that there will always be caveats to this, with some, normally under-reported, homicides gaining
widespread coverage through unpredictable factors such as current societal issues or interest from
a particular editor.

Existing research on the therapist development process has generally focused on how trainees acquire the knowledge and skills that have been identified as leading to professional competence. There has been less emphasis on how trainees experience the professional development process as related to their personal growth and development. Very few studies have focused on the experience of therapist trainees in long-term experientially oriented training groups. Additionally, there is a paucity of research on the existential psychotherapist development process, which may be partly due to the small number of North American existential training programs. In the present study, the researcher sought to discern how existential analysis (EA) trainees experienced personal development as related to their professional development as therapists. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was the methodology utilized. The researcher generated two master themes, each with two underlying themes that were further broken down into two subthemes per theme category. The first master theme of Interpersonal Processes was comprised of Witnessing (Being Witnessed and Bearing Witness) and Relating (Relational Depth and the Therapeutic Relationship), and the second master theme of Intrapersonal Dynamics included Personal Development (Personal Experience and Personal Growth) and Experiential Capacities (Self-Awareness and Presence). These master themes, themes, and subthemes are essential elements of the EA approach to therapist development. Furthermore, participants underwent a deepening of their interpersonal and intrapersonal experience; thus, the recursive nature of the EA training process can be linked to the dialogical nature of the theory. An insider perspective from trainees on how they have experienced this process adds to an understanding of how their personal development has influenced their development as therapists. While considering the limitations of this qualitative study focused on a specific type of existential phenomenological postgraduate training, the researcher makes suggestions for future research on how personal elements of therapist training influence the professional development process.

The psychopathological impact of parental mental ill-health on children is well known.  However, little research explores positive and negative interpretations of such exposure in childhood, from the adult child’s perspective. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) this study sought subjective interpretations of the ‘lived’ experiences of growing up in a family with parental mental ill-health. A purposive sample of seven adult children provided data for analysis through semi-structured interviews. One superordinate theme: A fractured journey of growth to adulthood, overarched six subordinate themes. Four themes captured stigma, shame, social isolation and betrayal. Juxtaposed with this, two themes captured purposeful redefinition of self and psychological growth. This study captures the chronicity of traumatic distress and sense of betrayal experienced by these participants in childhood through unrelenting exposure to parental mental ill-health. However, despite unpredictability, fear, and neglect in childhood, they identified the emergence of inner strengths in adult life: unexpected growth in empathy and compassion, high resourcefulness, and personal authenticity through higher education.  Findings highlight that positively redefining ‘self’ in adult life is possible in the aftermath of childhood trauma associated with parental mental ill-health. Implications for therapy include: a) moving forward from childhood trauma; b) managing ongoing family dynamics in adult-life.

Kaija Saariaho’s NoaNoa (1992) for flute and electronics calls upon the flautist to vocalise words and isolated consonants whilst playing; the prominence of these vocalisations is altered both by the indexical properties of the performer’s voice and their decision to whisper, speak or sing. Through a phenomenological analysis of two separate recordings of NoaNoa informed by Ferrara’s 1984 analysis of Varèse’s Poème électronique, this paper examines the effect this differing prominence has on the metamorphosis of flute and voice, the perception of text, and the synthesis of stasis and movement.

Heidegger's fundamental ontology is a long effort to recover the original task of thinking by rethinking the ultimate ground otherwise than in terms of subjectivity or substantiality; by rethinking the sense of Being.
Thinking post-subjectivity here means taking the Heideggerian challenge seriously: trying to hear again the meaning of subjectivity, after and despite Heidegger’s radical critique of subjectivity as an onto-theological operator (substance) preventing the access to a genuine hearing of Being. Could there be a thinking of subjectivity which does not fall under Heidegger's critique of subjectivity as substantiality? Is it possible to read the philosophical tradition otherwise than Heidegger, and perhaps to track another "history of subjectivity" in it than the one he describes? Those are the questions this paper addresses.
The hypothesis of  this paper is that Heidegger’s critique of subjectivity is possible only at the price of an occultation of another thought of subjectivity, and of a different metaphysics present in Greek thinking since its very dawn. In what follows, I am proposing a reading of the Socratic-Platonic thought of the soul precisely in this way: as an original thought of subjectivity which defies Heidegger's critique of subjectivity as substantiality and presence. In order to show this, I am examining here the history of the relation between subjectivity and substantiality. The critical moment of this history is the transition from Plato to Aristotle. Actualizing the debate between Plato and Aristotle on the nature of the soul while recognizing the non-substantial quality of the Platonic soul will contribute to the recollection, from within Western metaphysics, of a different tradition of thought than the one criticized by Heidegger, and perhaps also to the renewal of this other, forgotten tradition of subjectivity.

In the scientific community, and particularly in psychology and health, there has been an active and ongoing debate on the relative merits of adopting either quantitative or qualitative methods, especially when researching into human behaviour (Bowling, 2009; Oakley, 2000; Smith, 1995a, 1995b; Smith, 1998). In part, this debate formed a component of the development in the 1970s of our thinking about science. Andrew Pickering has described this movement as the "sociology of scientific knowledge" (SSK), where our scientific understanding, developing scientific ‘products’ and 'know-how', became identified as forming components in a wider engagement with society’s environmental and social context (Pickering, 1992: 1). Since that time, the debate has continued so that today there is an increasing acceptance of the use of qualitative methods in the social sciences (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000; Morse, 1994; Punch, 2011; Robson, 2011) and health sciences (Bowling, 2009; Greenhalgh & Hurwitz, 1998; Murphy & Dingwall, 1998). The utility of qualitative methods has also been recognised in psychology. As Nollaig Frost (2011) observes, authors such as Carla Willig and Wendy Stainton Rogers consider qualitative psychology is much more accepted today and that it has moved from "the margins to the mainstream in psychology in the UK." (Willig & Stainton Rogers, 2008: 8). Nevertheless, in psychology, qualitative methodologies are still considered to be relatively 'new' (Banister, Bunn, Burman, et al., 2011; Hayes, 1998; Richardson, 1996) despite clear evidence to the contrary (see, for example, the discussion on this point by Rapport et al., 2005). Nicki Hayes observes, scanning the content of some early journals from the 1920s – 1930s that many of these more historical papers "discuss personal experiences as freely as statistical data" (Hayes, 1998, 1). This can be viewed as an early development of the case-study approach, now an accepted methodological approach in psychological, health care and medical research, where our knowledge about people is enhanced by our understanding of the individual 'case' (May & Perry, 2011; Radley & Chamberlain, 2001; Ragin, 2011; Smith, 1998).

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) has become a popular methodological framework in qualitative psychology. Studies based in IPA focus on examining how individuals make meaning of their life experiences. A detailed analysis of personal accounts followed by presenting and discussing the generic experiential themes is typically paired with the researcher’s own interpretation, which is an expression of double hermeneutics in
practice. IPA draws upon phenomenology, hermeneutics, and idiography. This paper presents fundamental principles behind IPA and offers guidelines for doing a study based on this framework.

The innovative theory of the “criminal spin” presents a phenomenological description and interpretation of criminal conduct. The theory indicates a process that occurs in different phases of criminality, involving an escalation of criminal activity, thinking, and emotions that run beyond self-control, sometimes contrary to initial decision. Its phenomenology indicates an interaction between individual, group, and situation and a growing self-centeredness with two leading motives: “I can” and “I must.” The first denotes a perceived legitimacy and capability to perform criminal conduct. The second reflects an existential threat and a belief that it must be removed by any action. These motives may operate in an acute or a chronic phase, within individuals, groups, or societies. The spin is a detectable process with known characteristics and prognosis. Implications for intervention are outlined.

We have two ways of knowing. Our mind knows forms, things, both subtle and gross. Faces, hands, buildings, trees, math formulas, mind knows subject and the mind knows otherness. The mind knows dualities, the mind knows me and you, us and them, and this and that. Mind knows time, mind knows the past, the present and the sense of the future. The mind knows things and entities, the mind knows beings, infinite numbers of beings and things. The mind knows difference. The mind thinks conceptually, feels affectively, imagines through imagery, the mind has sense and the mind has memory. The mind knows dualistically.

Student interaction is critical to online social cohesion and collaborative learning. However, online learners
need to adjust to the computer mediated communication (CMC) medium of the online environment.
This study explores online learners’ experiences of asynchronous text-based CMC using an interpretative
phenomenological analysis of interviews with six online students. The analysis revealed that the
constraints of written communication and lack of human interaction causes difficulties in adjusting
and coping with the online learning environment. Four major themes were identified: the inability to
express one’s self fully; difficulties establishing relationships; comparing one’s self to others and the
written word as an ineffective learning medium. The study’s findings highlight a need for better student
and tutor collaboration to facilitate a safe and interactive environment. Effective academic and social
support can enhance online learning, improve student satisfaction and encourage students to persist with
their learning.