The general view of descriptive research as a lower level form of inquiry has influenced some researchers conducting qualitative research to claim methods they are really not using and not to claim the method they are using: namely, qualitative description. Qualitative descriptive studies have as their goal a comprehensive summary of events in the everyday terms of those events. Researchers conducting qualitative descriptive studies stay close to their data and to the surface of words and events. Qualitative descriptive designs typically are an eclectic but reasonable combination of sampling, and data collection, analysis, and re-presentation techniques. Qualitative descriptive study is the method of choice when straight descriptions of phenomena are desired.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/1098-240X%28200008%2923%3A4%3C334%3A%3AAID-NUR9%3E3.0.CO%3B2-G

Whatever happened to qualitative description

Part I. Experimental Studies: 2. Experiment in psychology 3. Experiments on perceiving III Experiments on imaging 4-8. Experiments on remembering: (a) The method of description (b) The method of repeated reproduction (c) The method of picture writing (d) The method of serial reproduction (e) The method of serial reproduction picture material 9. Perceiving, recognizing, remembering 10. A theory of remembering 11. Images and their functions 12. Meaning Part II. Remembering as a Study in Social Psychology: 13. Social psychology 14. Social psychology and the matter of recall 15. Social psychology and the manner of recall 16. Conventionalism 17. The notion of a collective unconscious 18. The basis of social recall 19. A summary and some conclusions.

Remembering. A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology, Cambridge (University Press) 1964.

Qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis are two commonly used approaches in data analysis of nursing research, but boundaries between the two have not been clearly specified. In other words, they are being used interchangeably and it seems difficult for the researcher to choose between them. In this respect, this paper describes and discusses the boundaries between qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis and presents implications to improve the consistency between the purpose of related studies and the method of data analyses. This is a discussion paper, comprising an analytical overview and discussion of the definitions, aims, philosophical background, data gathering, and analysis of content analysis and thematic analysis, and addressing their methodological subtleties. It is concluded that in spite of many similarities between the approaches, including cutting across data and searching for patterns and themes, their main difference lies in the opportunity for quantification of data. It means that measuring the frequency of different categories and themes is possible in content analysis with caution as a proxy for significance.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/nhs.12048

Content analysis and thematic analysis: Implications for conducting a qualitative descriptive study

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/201/4359/899.2.full.pdf

Phenomenology of perception.

http://www.columbia.edu/~mvp19/RMC/M5/QualQual.pdf

Qualitative research: standards, challenges, and guidelines

This article points out the criteria necessary in order for a qualitative scientific method to qualify itself as phenomenological in a descriptive Husserlian sense. One would have to employ (1) description (2) within the attitude of the phenomenological reduction, and (3) seek the most invariant meanings for a context. The results of this analysis are used to critique an article by Klein and Westcott (1994), that presents a typology of the development of the phenomenological psychological method.

/pdf/the-theory-practice-and-evaluation-of-the-phenomenological-54nsgvwrth.pdf

The Theory, Practice, and Evaluation of the Phenomenological Method as a Qualitative Research Procedure

This volume represents a sustained statement about a phenomenological approach to psychological research along with original findings to compare with mainstream psychology. It is both a theoretical justification of a phenomenological and human scientific approach to psychological research and a presentation of findings in the areas of cognitive, clinical, and social psychology. Phenomenology and Psychological Research is further clarification of the phenomenological approach to psychological research along with examples of application in four different content areas: learning and thinking (both being examples of alternative approaches to cognitive processes), self-deception (clinical psychology), and criminal victimization (social psychology). As such, it gives the reader who is merely curious about the possibilities of phenomenological approaches a good opportunity to evaluate its fruitfulness, whereas those who are already sympathetic to the approach will find a greater articulation of the theory behind the procedures. Lastly, the reader will find in this study an example of a descriptive and qualitative approach to psychological research that claims to meet both phenomenological and human scientific criteria. It is one of the first books to make such a claim about psychological research.

Phenomenology and Psychological Research

Conceptual Framework The Qualitative Perspective in Researching Psychological Phenomena The research Process Scientific Phenomenological Method & Its Philosophical Context The Phenomenological Method The Application of the Method Index

The Descriptive Phenomenological Method in Psychology: A Modified Husserlian Approach

The author explains that his background was in experimental psychology but that he wanted to study the whole person and not fragmented psychological processes. He also desired a non-reductionistic method for studying humans. Fortunately he came across the work of Edmund Husserl and discovered in the latter’s thought a way of researching humans that met the criteria he was seeking. Eventually he developed a phenomenological method for researching humans in a psychological way based upon the work of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. This article briefly describes the method.

Amedeo Giorgi

Papers

The Theory, Practice, and Evaluation of the Phenomenological Method as a Qualitative Research Procedure

Phenomenology and Psychological Research

The Descriptive Phenomenological Method in Psychology: A Modified Husserlian Approach

The Descriptive Phenomenological Psychological Method

Sketch of a psychological phenomenological method