Abstract
Sarah Vicary and Gillian Ferguson take us on a delightful journey in their book that could be utilised as a practical ‘how-to’ guide for the novice social work Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) researcher and an excellent supplemental text for the more experienced IPA researcher.
The book consists of three succinct parts. Each part is clustered thematically, making for an easy-to-follow reference aimed at social work students, social work researchers and veteran IPA researchers.
Before I discuss Part 1, I would like to consider the social work role and ethos as this textbook is specifically aimed at the social work researcher. As the authors point out, the social work profession is deeply rooted in ethical foundations, with all practice and intervention guided by evidence. Social workers effect change through relationships forged with service users, stakeholders, and community partners (Staniforth, Fouché and O'Brien, 2011). A social worker is often drawn to the profession as a calling to make a difference through direct work with individuals, a community, or through policy change (Payne, 2006). It is integral to the profession that all practice is guided through evidence-based research, which continues to evolve from emerging issues as needs grow and change (Engel and Schutt, 2016). It is natural that social workers strive to find out more and continue to seek answers to questions that impact us through contributing to the body of research knowledge. When I began my PhD, I understood what I wanted to find out, although I did not necessarily know how to obtain that information nor whom to obtain it from. This book provides much needed clarity to the prospective IPA researcher as it takes the researcher through every stage of the process, provides extracts and examples taken from the authors own theses and explores the fundamental aspects to IPA.
Chapters 1 and 2 draw out the theoretical and conceptual underpinnings of IPA and explore the differences in other qualitative research methodologies. The authors neatly set out how IPA developed from theoretical influences of phenomenology, hermeneutics, and ideography. In other IPA texts, I often found descriptions of these theoretical footings to be far more complicated than they ought to be. However, here the authors do a great job at clearing out the clutter and getting straight to the core of the theory in an accessible and enjoyable way. These concepts are revisited throughout the book, ensuring these principles are embedded in research. Chapter 3 helps the researcher to consider an IPA study design and gives practical advice on how to sharpen the research focus and maintain the foundations of IPA.
In reading Part 1, I reflected on my own research experience and the two main factors for why IPA was well suited to my subject matter. Firstly, I knew my potential pool of participants would be rather limited since there are so few people who experience the phenomenon I wanted to study. In accepting this fact, I needed to understand how I could effectively get to the heart of the experience with a relatively small number of participants. This leads me to the second, but most important aspect for my research study rationale. IPA allows the researcher to get very close to the data and gathers intimate detail of the experience. IPA allowed me to pick up this intangible thing, the phenomenon, hold it in my hands, examine it from every angle, place it down, shine a light on it, pick it up, and examine it again. It was clear that one of the ways to elevate the experience of individuals was to look at it through the IPA lens, teasing out the deeper meaning of the experience.
Vicary and Ferguson discuss this in Part 2, much more eloquently than I have done here. The chapters within Part 2 bring the reader from methodology to method and beyond. The reader is guided through the design phase from careful recruitment strategies to data collection options that bring about the rich detail of the experience. The theoretical underpinnings of IPA are revisited throughout this section, but particular focus is provided in Chapter 5 when discussing how to make sense of the data through an IPA lens. The authors discuss the steps in a systematic way, which provides reassurance to the prospective researcher that there is a clear pathway to uncover the depth of experience through a series of examination, reflection, and interpretation.
The authors highlight their different approaches to their research projects which gives a good balance of alternate ways to conduct an IPA study. It also adds authenticity by bringing themselves into the text. The authors take us through the process of their own sense making of the data. The stages of unearthing the experiential statements develop into personal experiential themes which grow into group experiential themes. Vicary and Ferguson provide their real-world examples of their processes and make good use of helpful charts and figures to bring to life this systematic process.
As someone who also used software to help organise their data, it was good to see how Vicary used this in a similar way. There is flexibility in IPA to deal with the data in a way that makes the most sense of the information and will allow the full embodied experience to be uncovered and analysed. For many researchers, such as Ferguson, this may be done in a tactile way – with colourful markers, post it notes, interpretive drawings, and the like. Whilst other researchers have found it useful and effective to understand and engage with the data through the use of software. Vicary detailed how she used software while still staying true to the principles of IPA and engaging in the hermeneutic circle, as discussed in Chapter 5.
Vicary and Ferguson discuss other features of a research study, including research planning, participant gathering and supervision. They link supervision, a key feature in the social work profession, with the use of research supervision as a method to check learning, ensure academic rigour, and ensuring the hermeneutic circle is being maintained. The authors highlight research etiquette, such as thanking participants who share their most intimate details about their experiences to add to the body of knowledge. Vicary and Ferguson fully bring their experience of their research journeys, allowing the reader to embed how to think about their research, how to structure it, and how to defend it.
Part 3 makes an argument to the future social work researcher to take the leap into the IPA waters. IPA has been embedded in psychology since its inception. This means that there is a litany of IPA research studies in the field of psychology but much less so in social work. Although IPA research studies are typically used in psychology, but this does not necessarily need to be the case when it fits neatly within other disciplines (Gil-Rodriguez and Hefferon, 2011). The authors discuss how IPA is a good fit for the social work researcher who wants to uncover the lived experience. They highlight how IPA aligns within social work professional ethics and standards and thus provides the researcher with good defence for an IPA study.
This book is a much-welcomed addition to the world of IPA, and it is a quick and fun read. I only wish I had this book when starting my PhD.