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Phenomenological Design: De nition, Advantages & Limitations

Lesson Transcript

Some researchers are interested in how humans experience certain phenomena. In this lesson, we'll look at one
way to study the universal experience of phenomena through phenomenological research and its strengths and
limitations.
fokusnya : pengalaman manusia
Qualitative Research
Ethan is a psychologist who is interested in studying how families of autistic children cope with the
di cult news that their child has autism. Do they feel angry? Scared? Do they turn to family for
support or to medical professionals? Do they seek out parents of other autistic children to help
them through it?

Obviously, Ethan has a lot of good questions about how parents cope when they nd out that their
child has autism. In order to answer those questions, he has to decide what research method he's
going to use. There are a couple of di erent research methods. One common type of research is
qualitative research, which looks in-depth at non-numerical data.

For example, if Ethan interviews parents of autistic children, he'll have notes and transcripts of his
interviews. How does he run statistical analysis on those? The answer is that he can't because it is
non-numerical data. He's chosen to do qualitative research. Let's look closer at one type of
qualitative research- phenomenological research - and its strengths and limitations.

Phenomenological Design
Ethan knows that he wants to do qualitative research. He thinks that interviewing is the best way to
go as far as his research study is concerned. So he decides to interview a bunch of parents of
autistic kids. He's interested in how they coped with the news that their child had autism.

Ethan is doing phenomenological research, which involves trying to understand the essence of a
phenomenon by examining the views of people who have experienced that phenomenon. Think of
the word 'phenomenon' and you'll be able to remember 'phenomenological.' In Ethan's case, the
phenomenon that he's interested in studying is that of learning that a child has autism. Of course,
the phenomenon could be something else, like living through war or getting on the dean's list. A
phenomenon could be almost anything.

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10/6/2020 Phenomenological Design: Definition, Advantages & Limitations - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

Phenomenology is interested in the individual experiences of people. It usually involves long, in-
depth interviews with subjects, and sometimes researchers will interview the same subject several
times to get a full picture of their experience with the phenomenon. In Ethan's case, he's
interviewing the parents to see how they dealt with learning that their child was autistic.

After the interviews are done, a phenomenological researcher like Ethan will look back through
them, searching for patterns. Maybe several of the parents talk about how meeting other parents
of autistic children helped them cope. That's a pattern, and it can tell Ethan something about how
parents deal. Essentially, phenomenological research is looking for the universal nature of an
experience.
+ kasih banyak data yang detail
+ gaperlu pake statistik
Strengths and Limitations - belom tentu orang bakal kasi data detail
- butuh interpretasi
There are several strengths of phenomenological research. For one thing, it provides a very rich
and detailed description of the human experience. By examining the interviews he held with the
parents, Ethan is able to get a very good look at what it's like to deal with the news that your child is
autistic. He wouldn't get as detailed a view if he just handed out a quick survey and asked parents
to check o what they did to cope.

Another strength of phenomenology is that the results emerge from the data, instead of being
imposed by a structured statistical analysis. For example, if Ethan gave out a survey to see what
types of things parents did to cope, he could get a tally and run statistics to see which approaches
were most common and which approaches parents liked the best.

But that's still a relatively limited view. After all, Ethan is only getting the results that he can gure
out based on statistical analysis. But with phenomenology, he is able to take a look at the big
picture and notice trends emerging from the data. He doesn't have to pick a statistical analysis and
run it; he can just look at the content of the interviews and see what emerges.

But there are some limitations to phenomenological research, as well. One major problem is that it
depends upon the subjects being articulate about their experiences. But what if the parents Ethan
works with are not well educated and don't have the skills to communicate well? That could lead to
him not getting a good view of their experiences.

Another weakness is that it requires researcher interpretation. For example, what if Ethan is
reading the transcript from one of his interviews and he sees that one of the parents describes
how her heart stopped and her hands began to shake when she heard the news that her son was
autistic. What does that mean, exactly? Did she feel scared? Sad? Angry? Ethan has to interpret
what she said, which could lead to mistakes or false conclusions.

Lesson Summary

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10/6/2020 Phenomenological Design: Definition, Advantages & Limitations - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

Qualitative research involves examining non-numerical data in-depth. One type of qualitative
research is phenomenological research, which involves trying to understand the universal
experience of a phenomenon through interviews with subjects. There are many strengths to
phenomenology, including that it o ers a rich and detailed view of the human experience and that
the results emerge from the data. However, there are limitations as well, including the fact that it
depends upon the subjects' articulateness and that it requires researcher interpretation.

Learning Outcome
After watching this lesson, you should be able to discuss phenomenological research and its
strengths and limitations.

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