Interpretative phenomenological analysis

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) has developed internationally into a growing qualitative approach to research in the areas of psychology, health sciences, social sciences, education and also specifically in music education. This chapter focuses on IPA as an experiential approach to research which explores the lived experience of the individual’s perception and how individuals make sense of it in their given context. As with other forms of phenomenological research, IPA takes account of the researcher’s own context and perceptions through a process of interpretation, while analyzing the phenomena under study. IPA offers a framework to undertake research based on the traditions of phenomenology, which uncover meanings and hermeneutics which interpret the meaning; it is idiographic in nature when undertaking data analysis. This chapter provides a narrative on IPA as an appropriate methodology that can be used when undertaking research in education and in particularly music education. As a tertiary researcher of music education I have employed IPA in my research. This chapter attempts to address broad questions in relation to: What is IPA? Where does it come from? How is it used? How does one analyze interview data and construct themes? A brief discussion of the strengths and limitations of the method is posed, giving examples where IPA has been successfully employed in music research. By balancing the tensions between phenomenology, hermeneutics and idiographic approaches, IPA situates music and music education research within the realm of qualitative experiential research. I argue that if more music educators apply IPA to their research, we can look forward to the emergence of new insights from research in music and music education that is rigorous and offers both convergent and divergent analysis, beyond description, using interpretation to explain insights.