Giving voice to headteachers using interpretative phenomenological analysis-IPA

Introduction

Opportunities for educational leaders to speak and be heard should always be an essential element of 21st-century schooling. The focus of this article is to present an account of the design and process of an interpretative phenomenological approach (IPA) study, concerning the lived experiences of headteachers in leading inclusive practices in their schools. It also reflects on the nature of the headteachers’ lived experiences that were used as a yardstick for leading their schools. It was anticipated that knowledge of headship experiences and perceptions would help the headteachers to ascertain how they operate, to review if they could be better supported and to reflect on how their headship could be strengthened to contribute towards the development of inclusive education in their schools.

In this article, the voice of headteachers is argued to be of unique significance to the success of their leadership practice. According to Covey (2004), those on the path to greatness find their voice and inspire others to find theirs, and those who inspire others to find theirs are the leaders needed now and for the future. Covey (2004) suggests four questions that may guide leaders in finding their voice: What are you good at? What do you love doing? What need can you serve? What do you feel like you should be doing? This article explores how a study of headteachers’ experiences, using an IPA framework, created the opportunity for them to hear their voices; understand their strengths and further develop this potential to lead their schools in the context of Caribbean settings.

Why the interpretive phenomenological approach?

IPA aims to offer insights into how a given person, in a given context, makes sense of a given phenomenon (Smith et al., 2009). In this case, it was used to explore how headteachers ascribe meaning to their unique, lived experiences and how this affected their role in facilitating inclusive education.

IPA was selected as a way of framing such a study because of its qualitative ability, as it is best able to offer insights into how a given person, in a given context, makes sense of a given phenomenon. This psychological approach is especially appropriate for understanding the experiences and perspectives of Caribbean school leaders and how these experiences impact their role in facilitating inclusive practices in secondary education because of three key reasons.

First, although there are multiple ways to interpret the same experience, IPA focuses on understanding the participants’ experiences through their lens, with the view that only his or her perspective can infer his or her meaning. How a person perceives things to be, regardless of how skewed their perceptions may be, is assumed to be their reality. For example, the literature reviewed shows experience to be a deciding factor in the selection of headteachers in the Caribbean; in which case, the lived experience of the principal is of utmost importance in the context of the study because Caribbean school leaders largely draw upon their experiences to get through their days at school.

Second, this approach matches the epistemological position assumed in this research; that only the person experiencing a particular phenomenon is best able to understand their experiences: IPA is suited to circumstances in which participants are invited to offer a rich, detailed, first-person account of their experiences. One-on-one and unstructured interviews are considered the best means of assessing such accounts because the interviews facilitate the elicitation of stories, thoughts and feelings about the phenomenon. By developing a rapport with participants, interviews can provide as much depth as possible (Smith et al., 2009).

Third, the IPA approach is good at bringing to the surface deep issues and enabling voices to be heard. According to Fullan (2001), Sergiovanni (2000) and Combs et al. (1999), an individual’s values and underlying beliefs influence their behaviour and guide their work practices and approaches. A leader’s authenticity, therefore, depends on the nature of his or her belief system as well as the ability to share it meaningfully (Deal and Peterson, 1999). Capacity to lead in this way may be derived from the lived experience of the individual leader, whose experience often drives his or her beliefs and actions.

The following questions guided the study.

How is school leadership positioned in the current Caribbean context, concerning the differential conditions of preparation and orientation of headteachers?

The interpretive nature of the IPA method has much to offer headteachers in multiple contexts. It provides insight into questions relating to their expertise, their leadership capabilities and preferences, and guides decision making to (or ‘intending to’) make a positive impact on their practice.

Interpretative phenomenological analysis

According to Smith et al. (2009), IPA is the single most useful research method that explicitly offers the kind of interaction with participants which expose their different reality according to their lived experiences. In this study, the IPA analysis allowed for the Interpretation of both the explicit and the implicit dimensions of the school leaders’ narrative, where headteachers gave accounts of their personal lived experience as it related to school leadership and inclusive education in their unique context. The phenomenological background to this approach sees it as exploring how people ascribe meaning to their experiences. This type of analysis is set within the broader context of interpretative social science research, using mainly qualitative data and offers both a methodological and an analytical approach towards exploring and understanding the experience of a particular phenomenon.

This interpretive stance has subjected IPA to criticism with, mostly, Husserlian phenomenologists, for example, Finlay (2009), arguing that research is phenomenological only when it meets two criteria. First, it involves a description of the lived world or lived experience and, second, the researcher has adopted an open phenomenological attitude, which, at least, refrains from importing external frameworks and sets aside judgments about the realness of the phenomenon (Finlay et al., 2009). Others do not require such strict criteria, for example, Georgie (2000), who explains that IPA is phenomenologically inspired because it attracts thoughts. Georgie does caution that these ideas may need to be modified to make them meaningful in the context in which their interpretation is used.

In essence, phenomenological studies, such as IPA, examine the structure of various types of experience. The structure of these forms of experience typically involves what Husserl called intentionality: that is, it’s being directed towards something. IPA asserts that our conscious experience is directed towards our intentions or actions in a particular context or depending on specific factors (for example, the tree you see in the school yard is distinct from the general concept of a tree, depending on the purpose it serves at a point in time). These make up the meaning or content of a given experience and are distinct from the things they present or mean. This article discusses three main areas of methodological focus, derived from reports in a Caribbean study, regarding headteachers’ leadership experiences:

the adaptability of IPA to unique contextual connotations of the phenomenon;

The problem

The problem addressed by the study was as the result of escalating support needs among mainstream school age children in the Caribbean, which had led to an increasing demand for new and more comprehensive education programmes. Such troubling events can contribute to the creation of complex new school situations (Fullan and Hargreaves, 1996; Lambert et al., 1997), which could have worrying implications for school principals regarding professional training to meet the challenges of 21st-century schools. As the progression towards inclusive schooling heightens, the role of headteachers in the Caribbean becomes more and more complicated. Such complexities demand greater flexibility and wisdom in negotiating school life amid the complications. The insights from reflections of the headteachers themselves were considered a valuable way to offer solutions to these issues concerning next steps: by holding a mirror up to the headteachers’ perceptions of their lived experience they would become empowered to identify and address the challenges.

Recruitment and ethical considerations

A purposive sample was taken of 16 headteachers from public secondary schools in the Caribbean. In considering the purpose of this study, a set of criteria was established that considered the unique characteristics of the schools, what was known about the potential participants and each school’s population. Lists of respondents who matched the criteria and who were willing to participate in the study were invited to participate and informed about its nature and purpose. A key principle for constructing ethical research is that of ensuring that the participants agree voluntarily to be engaged in the research. In this study, the headteachers who were approached gave informed and explicit consent, free from coercion and bribery to take part in the study (ESRC, 2005). The emphasis on informed consent arises from fundamental democratic rights of freedom and self-determination (Cohen et al., 2000). Letters of assurance and confidence in the research and researcher were provided by the researcher’s university supervisors on request. Signed declarations were provided, which also explained how the participants would be protected from potential harm and violation of their privacy while reassuring them that the researcher planned to maintain the integrity of the research and its ethical standards.

Unstructured interviewing with IPA in mind

The data was collected within a period of 3 to 5 months. The design of the interviews needed to evolve as themes emerged because the structure was not predetermined; this allowed participants to explore their understandings of the phenomenon explicitly. Hence, the interviews lasted approximately 1 hour, and were usually done face to face; although flexibility was offered to use alternative modes of communication, such as video conferencing and the telephone, depending on the respondents’ preferences and availability.

This research guided the researcher to appreciate the merit of the conversational nature of an unstructured interview to allow the interviewer to be highly responsive to individual differences and situational changes (Patton, 2002) while aiming to try to capture the richness of the participants’ unique experience. The researcher was, therefore, aware that they were an integral part of the research instrument, trying not to structure the inquiry by using predefined frameworks and questions. Scott and Morrison (2006) indicated that the success of the interview depended on the researcher’s ability to generate questions in response to the context and to move the conversation in a direction of interest to the researcher. In this case, to aid understanding of the experiences of these school leaders and how these impacted their role in facilitating inclusive education in their respective schools.

The discussions followed sequences that were primarily narrative or descriptive. The sequences begun with a question that allowed the participant to recount a fairly vivid work-related episode or experience. For example, how did you become a school leader? In this way, it was hoped that the participant would quickly become comfortable and engrossed in his or her story. Promptings or invitations to be more analytical were introduced when it became apparent that they had eased into the interview. Care was taken to ensure that the participants’ concerns led the conversations; with matters arising out of the discussion were followed up by the researcher. This following up procedure was necessary because the respondents may have said something that was not anticipated and, because they arise unprompted, may well be of particular importance to the participant (Smith et al., 2009). As discussed earlier both interviewer and interviewee in an IPA study are active participants within the research process. Full attention was given to the participant at all times during the interview and care was taken to avoid all possibilities of distraction. The interviews needed to be carried out in a clear and confident manner so that the participants knew there was no pre-set agenda and that they were free to say whatever they had to say about the topic in as much detail as they cared to give. Participants were reminded that the stories of their experience were the most important aspect of the research process and they were assured that there were, therefore, no right and wrong answers or ideas.

Although the interviews were mainly participant led, an interview schedule was used as a contingency measure (Smith et al., 2009). Questions were set as in an ‘ideal’ situation and as expected or most appropriate for the participants. However, this guideline of broad, open-ended questions served as a contingency frame to help decide how and when to probe interesting leads. Even so, when reading the transcripts later, additional aspects were identified as worthy of further investigation. In retrospect, it was felt that this could be remedied through the use of follow-up interviews or a process of triangulation where participants could be contacted to verify transcripts or clarify points made during the discussions.

It was hard to control the direction and pace of the conversation and the degree of directedness of the questions and statements proposed during the discussion. The researcher was aware that the quality of the conversation was mostly influenced by the participants’ representation of their diverse work environment. Hence, in all cases, the researcher was the learner in the conversation, trying to make sense of the interviewee’s experiences from his or her point of view. Taking this position helped the researcher to assume an open-minded approach throughout the interviews, to dismiss preconceived notions and adopt a neutral stance concerning the participants’ stories (Smith et al., 2009). This neutrality required consistent effort to refrain from inserting the researcher’s insider knowledge of the context and allowing participants to explore their thoughts and experiences without interruptions. The researcher deliberately took the time to process participants’ responses and showed genuine interest in the new information being revealed.

Another major feature that might have affected the interview process was the rhythm or dynamics of the interaction (Smith et al., 2009). At the beginning of the interview the expectation was that there might be condensed meanings, narratives and understandings; but as the conversation progressed and the participants warmed up to the exercise and were relaxed, there were changes in the interview tone. The discussion moved from the descriptive to the active, from the general to the specific, from the superficial to the disclosing (Smith et al., 2009). All this was happening in parallel to, but at least partly independent of, the unfolding topic sequence. In preparation, the researcher remained alerted to the interview dynamics and ready to revisit the first issue at a later point if necessary. In any case, questions on more sensitive topics were asked later in the interview to avoid impeding the flow of discussion.

Participants were encouraged to speak more about themselves rather than others; to maintain their attention to the personal meaning of events. However, as the interview progressed, the participant’s dynamic shaped the interview dialogue, and there was no longer any need to probe for responses repeatedly. This demonstrated that the interview technique did facilitate a general shift from talking about things at the generic to the specific level. In this way, IPA attempted to expose the obvious and to reveal the strange in the familiar. According to Reid et al. (2005, cited in Smith et al., 2009), such one-to-one interviews can be easily managed, allowing a rapport to develop and giving the participant the space to think, speak and be heard. They were therefore well suited to in-depth and personal discussion suitable for the theoretical foundations of IPA.

Making sense of the data

Thematic analysis is the primary analytical approach used in IPA for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns and themes within data. This type of analysis organizes and describes the data set in rich detail, making interpretation easier (Boyatzis, 1998). Thematic analysis helps to unravel the reality of the participants’ experiences (Smith et al., 2009). There are seven stages in the thematic analytic process.

The interview transcript is read multiple times so as to achieve a deep emersion and to become familiar with the depth and breadth of the content; generating original codes.

Findings

This study found the role of Caribbean headteachers to be elusive; with regards to set roles and guidelines regarding inclusive education. It was difficult to purposely align their training and professional development with their required practice towards a quality inclusive education programme. School leadership practice was mostly aligned with a situational approach whereby headteachers constantly improvised strategies to embrace the complex and flexible contexts of their schools. Headteachers in the Caribbean were also found to be very instrumental and innovative in providing leadership under uniquely challenging circumstances. Headteachers’ experiences are central to their role of facilitating inclusive education in their schools, as these experiences seem to have an impact on their attitudes towards their jobs and the way in which they lead.

Conclusion

This article has introduced IPA as a research methodology oriented to exploring and understanding how headteachers made sense of their experiences in facilitating inclusive education within their unique work environment. Qualitative research methods that focus on the lived experience of people in leadership positions are relatively underutilized in educational research, yet they are arguably the most valuable for deriving rich data on issues relating to practice and experiences.

The study also highlighted as relevant the qualitative research data that revealed the personal perspectives of participants, through their lived experiences, as providing first-hand accounts of the situation. This provided a better understanding of what it is like to work in integrated school environments under challenging conditions as perceived by participants. For the purpose of this study, IPA offers a means of developing an understanding of the potential for improving the experience of students with learning disabilities through inclusive practices in mainstream schools.

For the practitioner, the value of this kind of research into lived experiences is that the findings are attuned to issues such as inclusion and leadership, which could be usefully explored in practice (Green and Britten, 1998). IPA as a research approach can be used to challenge conventional discourses or ways of thinking about issues such as school leadership. This is because of its strong commitment to use richly detailed and uniquely holistic representation of language and activities that adequately describe the experiences of headteachers (Smith et al., 2009; Smith and Osborn, 2008).

The findings from the IPA research are highly consistent and offer a clear understanding that can be used to contextualize existing research to inform understanding of under-researched topics like educational leadership. The findings could also be used to provoke a reappraisal of what is considered known about educational leadership in various settings. Education practitioners could use IPA as a useful and accessible approach in schools to inform practice and the development of support services.

Although the findings in the study were specific to the participants, they may be generalizable to a larger group of headteachers and school leaders globally, by establishing a wider resonance of the study beyond its particular context. This generalisability is possible because of similarities in the participants’ unique lived experience that may be transferable; and because of the rigour that underpins the interpretative phenomenological analysis conducted by using the thematic strategy (Mason, 1996; Smith et al., 2009). In addition, the comprehensive review and application of literature has revealed relevant and similar circumstances in various world contexts. Hence generalisability in this qualitative research may also be established by making sense of the similarity in school leaders’ role and situations, rather than on an explicit sampling and the drawing of conclusions about a specified population through statistical inference (Yin, 2003).