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Moustakas' modified van Kaam method

I will be doing a qualitative, phenomenological study for my doctoral thesis. I have proposed to employ Moustakas' (1994) modified van Kaam method for data analysis. My chair requested that I cite published, peer-reviewed journal articles. I am struggling to any such articles.

Help is appreciated.

Ahmad

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Permalink Reply by Russell Turner on June 1, 2010 at 11:18
Hi Ahmad,

I'm not familiar with Moustakas' (1994) modified van Kaam method, but you might want to compare with Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (see http://www.ipa.bbk.ac.uk/). IPA research is well published in the academic journals. There could be some common ground which helps you support your arguments.

Hope this helps.

Russell.
Permalink Reply by Ahmad Salih on June 1, 2010 at 11:38
Hi Russell,

I cannot thank you enough for such recommendation. I did not know about IPA. This looks very interesting and it might be something I should consider. You are right, a quick search on Google Scholar returned thousands of academic articles that have applied IPA.

Thanks again,
Ahmad
Permalink Reply by Ahmad Salih on June 16, 2010 at 12:40
Hello Russell,

I have been reading about IPA over the last couple of weeks. It seems that IPA has been used exclusively in psychology and health sciences. I am in business administration and I have not found a single study in business that has applied IPA. Should I be concerned about that?

Thanks,
Ahmad
Permalink Reply by Russell Turner on June 16, 2010 at 13:05
Hi Ahmad,

My personal opinion is that it depends on what your study is about, e.g. what kind of 'evidence' you are aiming to produce, to answer what kind of research questions, and for whom or what purpose?

I know nothing about business administration so am reluctant to advise you. However, my own view is that if people's own experiences are important in your study then a psychological method like IPA is well worth considering. In one sense any 'business psychology' should have links to mainstream psychology. These are just my personal views and you may want to discuss the issue with your PhD supervisor/s.

Regards,

Russell.
Permalink Reply by Ahmad Salih on January 20, 2011 at 11:46

Hi Russell,

 

It has been seven months since we had this discussion. I wanted to thank you again because I have found IPA to be well suited for my study. Since then, I have read the book by Smith et al. (2009) along with at least 15 articles on IPA. I also attended a workshop on IPA back in November at Aston University in Birmingham. I am now a member of the online IPA community and have been learning a great deal about the approach.

 

Thanks,

Ahmad

Permalink Reply by pahtie on June 17, 2010 at 5:08
Ahmad,

I came across a study last year that used the van Kaam method. It is: Salas, Catherine (2009). The influence of organizational structure on customer issue resolution: a phenomenological study. Dissertation. University of Phoenix. January 2009. UMI No: 3364171

Hope this helps.
Permalink Reply by Ahmad Salih on June 17, 2010 at 9:45
Hello Pahtie,

Thanks for the feedback. There are many doctoral dissertations that have used the van Kaam method. However, my chair wants to see peer-reviewed journal articles rather than dissertations.

Thanks.
Permalink Reply by Peter Jones on February 4, 2011 at 2:42

It sounds a little like you've selected a method to fit your perspecive rather than to really explore the problem and the research and discover the methods that expose the phenomena of interest. I'm familiar with Clark Moustakas' and other lived experience methods, but I guess I'm struck by the fact you haven't expressed what your research question is. That's the most critical place to start the inquiry you're sharing!

When I look at the literature in business that I attend to, the phenomenological approach I see most compelling is that of sensemaking, which is an interpretive analysis of lived experience. Either Weick's non-methodological approach to organizational analusis or Dervin's Sense-making Methodology, which is a serious and well-accepted method. Perhaps I should say more about SSMM on Methodspace, because it seems to be missing from discussion.

Peter Jones, Ph.D. Faculty, OCAD University

Permalink Reply by Ahmad Salih on February 4, 2011 at 12:17

Dr. Jones,

 

Thanks for the feedback. Please note that I'm not an experienced researcher, so excuse my ignorance. This is my first research project of this scale. I agree, however, I should have expressed my research question.

 

I am interested in exploring organizational barriers to strategy implementation. By "organizational" I mean those factors that are internal to the organization. I would like to examine the problems from the perspective of middle managers. So my research question is: How do middle managers describe organizational barriers to strategy implementation?

I guess I will have to read about Dervin's Sense-making Methodology. Thanks for the recommendation.

 

Cheers,

Ahmad

Permalink Reply by Lynnette Doran on September 26, 2011 at 16:14

Ahmad hello,

I've been inquirying into interviewing as well and after attending 3rd year residency, I learned something about Appreciative Inquiry (AI), a qualitiative methodology to open dialogue on positive aspects of an experience.

I thought about AI and after studying it, found that for most AI reported in the literature, the time element did not fit with my phenomenological study on leadersihp  because while AI often is set up for inquiry over a period of days, weeks, months, etc., my study will be with participants responding in a one-time interview lasting from 34-60 minutes.

The modified van Kaam method became known to me through dissertations on phenomenology of person-centered problems.  The method is for organizing and sorting data, etc. that I will iniitally think about as I conceptualize use of NVivo9 to enter data. The software application does not analyze data but assists the researcher in analysis.

Permalink Reply by Lynnette Doran on September 26, 2011 at 16:32

Ahmad I found one article I will cite and reference:


Paesar, S. (2010). Exploring disparities between teachers' expectations and the realities of the education profession. Research in Higher Education Journal, 8(1), 1-19. Retrieved from Education Research Complete database.

I did not see a doi identifyer

See data collection and analysis section of the article-then the end of the article where he has a nice graphic of themes.

Permalink Reply by Lynnette Doran on September 26, 2011 at 16:18

Dr. Jones hi,

 

Just taking a moment to talk with you about descriptive study and phenomenology.  I read that Ahmad is looking to describe middle managers organizational barriers to strategy implementation.

 

Should he be conducting interviews or focus groups, and depending on length of time span of inquiry, appreciative inquiry (AI) might also work nicely.

 

I read some on sensemaking and liked the method.  I thought it may not suit my one-time semi-structured interview plan but I am still looking into it. 

Best,

Lynn Doran 

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