Phenomenology in Social and Education research

What is Phenomenology? Why should we care?

Everyday understanding: phenomenon - a thing, an object, an event, a spectacle. Colloquial: “phenomenonal” - spectacular, amazing, huge etc.

phainomenai (Ancient Greek): to appear, to make present

Key moments

• Descartes (17th century France / Sweden): how things appear to me (not always how they are). What is the minimal thing of which I can be certain? That I am here thinking these thoughts (cogito ergo sum). Perhaps unfairly responsible for mind/body and subjective thought / objective reality distinction.

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Key moments

• Hegel (early 19th century Germany): Phenomenology of Mind / Spirit (Geist). A study of the movement of mind / spirit towards its ultimate realization (from sense to perception to consciousness to self-consciouness to reason to spirit to absolute spirit).
• Husserl (early 20thth century Germany). Return to Descartes (Cartesian Meditations).
• Heidegger (early/mid 20thth century Germany). The study of what it is to be; and specifically, to be the kind of thing that asks about being. Contra-Descartes (and Husserl), we are always in a world - thrown into it (Dasein = “being there”). We cannot study phenomena without being also constituted by it (by language, environment, culture etc). Origins of existentialism (Sartre etc).
• Merleau-Ponty: reinterprets Husserl, Heidegger with an emphasis on sensory perception, embodiment.

Relevance for social research

• Phenomenology responds to a problem of traditional research:
• I ask you a question (in a survey / interviews)
• I follow best-practice - the question has been asked before
• Take an example (from Teachers’ Acceptance of AI in Education (TAAI) instrument by Guo, Shi, & Zhai):
  • “I am willing to use AI tools to assess students.” - 5 point Likert scale (Strongly disagree = 1 … Strongly agree = 5)
  • Validated by expert review
  • All good?

“I am willing to use AI tools to assess students.”

• Am I? It depends…
  • Sometimes I’m impatient - Perhaps I use AI to check I’m not being too hasty?
  • Perhaps I am angry at my institution, pushing me to use AI - I deliberately refuse it (but I might use it in a different institution)
  • Which tools? It could depend…
  • Which student? It could depend…

So what is really measured?

Even qualitative research doesn’t solve this issue. While I am in my “official” pose as a teacher I might be concerned about perception (“social desirability bias”).

• “I don’t condone use of AI by students, so I wouldn’t use it myself either.”
• “AI is fantastic! Our school is right behind it, and so am I! Of course we need to be thoughtful about how its used…”

Is the truth out there? How do we get it?

Does phenomenonology solve these problems? Of course not, but it can aim - both in interview technique and data analysis - to capture “how things (actually) appear to the participant”. Get as close as possible to the experience of the partipant - not just what they think. An example:

• recall a (recent) incident of using AI for assessment (or when you refused to use it)
• what led up to that incident?
• what went through your mind as you prompted the AI for assessment?
• how did you feel about the results?
• reflect on any emotions / perceptions. Anxiety? Guilt? Pleasure? If so, why?

ChatGPT - Validated AI Use Survey

Because of the reliance upon detailed experience,

Another example: from Proust (an archetypal “phenomenological” writer)

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Another example: from TS Eliot

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Another example: from Virginia Woolf (stream of consciousness)

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Limitations

• Tensions with thematic analysis (can experience be ‘cut up’?)
• Memory is notoriously unreliable
• Social desirability bias
• Requires a ‘leap of faith’ - what constitutes proper, valid, reliable knowledge?