Reflections on phenomenographic process: Interview, transcription and analysis

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Research and Development in Higher Education Vol. 25: Quality Conversations

July, 2002, 794 pages
Published by
Tony Herrington
ISBN
0 908557 54 X
Abstract 

The processes of conducting and reading interviews are important in phenomenographic research, as well as other qualitative research orientations making significant contributions in higher education research and development. This paper aims to contribute to an ongoing conversation about the quality of research in higher education by exploring the interview, transcription and analysis processes through the experiences of the writer in a phenomenographic study conducted at Macquarie University last year. Transcription is explored as a transformative process, a bridge between interview and analysis across which the data, as well as the interviewer-researcher, are re-orientated towards the process of analytical reading. The critical aspects of interviews as living conversations are identified, namely that they are productive interactions in which the data is constituted, that the interviewee and interviewer negotiate on several levels to produce a shared meaning, and that meaning production in interviews is achieved through language. Finally, the interpretive reading of the artefacts of living conversations is considered, and some difficulties are identified.

Keywords: interviews, phenomenography, hermeneutics