Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

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The aim of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) is to explore indetail how participants are making sense of their personal and social world,and the main currency for an IPA study is the meanings particular experiences,events, states hold for participants. The approach is Phenomenological (seeChapter 3) in that it involves detailed examination of the participant s life-world; it attempts to explore personal experience and is concerned with anindividual s personal perception or account of an object or event, as opposedto an attempt to produce an objective statement of the object or event the same time, IPA also emphasizes that the research exercise is a dynamicprocess with an active role for the researcher in that process. One is trying toget close to the participant s personal world, to take, in Conrad s (1987)words, an insider s perspective , but one cannot do this directly or depends on, and is complicated by, the researcher s own conceptions;indeed, these are required in order to make sense of that other personal worldthrough a process of Interpretative activity.

project using IPA.Our current thinking is that for students doing IPA for the first time, three is an extremely useful number for the sample. This allows sufficient in-depth engagement with each individual case but also allows a detailed exami-nation of similarity and difference, convergence and divergence. The danger for

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