I am currently conducting a study and have collected interview data from students on their perspectives and experiences. I had anticipated that these experiences would be different based on their backgrounds, but there seems to be a lot of commonality across the experiences and how the experience impacted students. With limited variability between individuals, does phenomenography still apply as a methodology here?
Phenomenography, with the suffix -graph, denotes a research approach aiming at describing the different ways a group of people understand a phenomenon (Marton, 1981), whereas phenomenology, with the suffix -logos, aims to clarify the structure and meaning of a phenomenon (Giorgi, 1999).
Hello Kate Youmans
This was a similar question asked in 2014:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_are_the_differences_between_phenomenography_and_phenomenology_in_qualitative_research
You could always liaise with the RG member who gave a full and 'well recommended (12)' response (or others who responded).
This paper might also be helpful:
Larsson, J., & Holmström, I. (2007). Phenomenographic or phenomenological analysis: Does it matter? Examples from a study on anaesthesiologists’ work. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being, 2(1), 55-64.
Article Phenomenographic or phenomenological analysis: Does it matte...
See the discussion on p.61. I would think that a phenomenographic approach was appropriate, although I realise that your concern was the lack of variability.
When you write the study up, you could always discuss the lack of variability as a limitation of the research?
However, I have never carried out research using either of these approaches so cannot speak from experience. But you could also contact the author who is on RG: Inger Holmström
Maybe other RG members could suggest different approaches?
Very best wishes with this,
Mary
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