A reflective journal as learning process and contribution to quality and validity in interpretative phenomenological analysis
Summary (1 min read)
Introduction
- It examines the activity of journaling, (i.e. the use of a reflective researcher-created regular written log) as a learning process when undertaking data analysis.
- The use of a software package instead can enable and in turn, be judged against, as being of quality and valid.
The learning process
- The doctoral study from which the data are being analysed concerns the exploration of the role and experience of Approved Mental Health Professionals , a statutory role in which various approved non-medical professionals assess people for admission to mental health hospital in England and Wales.
- At this stage in the process the student was beginning to use the journal to reflect upon the reading she was doing in relation to the use of the software package to manage the analysis.
- In IPA the analyst is offering an interpretative account of what it means for the participant to have such concerns in a particular context 18/11/2014 10:06 what it means for the person in this particular situation (Larkin et al.
- This, as it turns out, did not matter as she was becoming more aware that her use of the journal was allowing her to reflect upon the learning and in turn she could use journals linked to each source as a way of not just analysing each source but of adding layers.
Conclusion
- This article discusses the relationship between such use and the process of data analysis when they are both housed inside a software package.
- The journal that began about the process became within the process.
- Using a journal inside the same software package housing the data is dynamic, simultaneously enabling the process of moving from description to interpretation and the development of the hermeneutic and later double hermeneutic, essential to IPA, and the assurance of its quality and validity.
- The testimony upon which their argument is based relies on the experience of one student.
- The student has also realised that analysis is an ongoing process.
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...Using the journaling process, the researcher focuses on the participants’ rich, thick description of the phenomenon, and accurately obtains a construct of the participants’ perspectives (Vicary et al., 2017)....
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References
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"A reflective journal as learning pr..." refers background or methods in this paper
...Or, I can see if the memo source using three types of initial comments as described by Smith et al., 2009 will work....
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...Last a criterion of relevance concerning analysis is transparency, or as Smith states, ‘what steps were used in analysis’ (Smith et al. 2009 p. 182) and, later, ‘so [the] reader can see what was done’ (Smith 2011a p. 17)....
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...It is acknowledged in IPA, as well as other methodological approaches, that software packages cannot replace active person-driven data analysis (Langdridge, 2007 and Smith et al., 2009)....
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...They are, according to the proponents of the methodology (Smith 1996, Smith et al. 2009), also offering an interpretative account of what it means for the participant to have such concerns within their particular context....
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...She therefore would be unable to analyse annotations distinguishing between the suggested three-way approach as suggested by Smith (Smith et al., 2009)....
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