Purpose: Reflexivity involves critical reflection by the qualitative researcher as to the influence of the researcher's culture, history and belief on the conduct and outcome of the research. It is often seen as a practice exercised in the analysis of results in order to attempt to objectify the research. The purpose of this paper is to argue that…

This paper suggests ways in which the profile of philosophical research in education could be raised, to demonstrate that it is legitimate and genuinely productive to engage in non-empirical research in education. I begin with some historical context for philosophical research in education, exploring the approach known as "conceptual…

Racial literacy was introduced in the early twenty-first century and has proliferated as a research framework and methodology. In education research specifically, racial literacy has been used as a foundation for empirical research and as a broader concept informing education practices. Mindful of this wide-ranging approach, a multidisciplinary…

This paper discusses methodological challenges in researching practice. The primary challenge discussed arises from the view that practice is inextricable from its performance, and that performance is embedded in social relations, material infrastructures and historical context. The paper argues for a philosophical hermeneutics approach that works…

The following inquiry asks the question: "What is the experience of transformation using imaginal knowing in counseling education?" Inspired by personal experience of transformation through education, the author engages this question by exploring others' experience of imaginal knowing in the context of a core-curriculum graduate-level…

This article presents the Holistic Empowering Methodological Approach (HEMA), which is philosophically informed by the concept of diversity by design; epistemologically and methodologically guided by hermeneutic phenomenology; and supported by the method of qualitative survey combined with the Single Question Aimed at Inducing Narrative (SQUIN)…

The authors question how hermetic texts in mathematics, history, and philosophy of mathematics, specifically those referring to abstract algebra, can be open to the understanding of researchers, teachers and students who are intentionally willing to understand them. This discussion suggests that the openness may happen through hermeneutic…

Through a qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological study, I examined the intersection of document analysis, sensemaking and policy implementation, that revealed rich descriptions of situated policy contexts and nested working practices where policy actors from Ontario, Canada, and England, UK, translated and used career guidance policy documents.…

Students of A-level history are required to analyse and evaluate historical interpretations. Samuel Head found limitations in his Year 13 students' understanding of how and why historians arrive at differing interpretations, which impeded their ability to analyse them. He set about tackling this with carefully sequenced planning and a processual…

When reliability and validity were introduced as validation criteria for empirical research in the human sciences, quantitative research methods prevailed, and theory of science relied on neopositivism (Vienna Circle) or postpositivism (scientific realism). Within this worldview, notions of reliability and validity as criteria of scientific…

Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is a contemporary qualitative research method grounded in phenomenology, hermeneutics, and idiography. Philosophical principles and rigorous methodology make this approach well suited for research in counselor education and supervision. In this primer, the authors introduce counselor educators,…

This article shows fundamental notions of one of the qualitative research methods, we refer to the hermeneutical phenomenology based on the theories of Van Manen, Raquel Ayala and Miguel Martínez. This approach leads to the description and interpretation of the essence of lived experiences, recognizes the meaning and importance in pedagogy,…

Phenomenology as a philosophy and a method of inquiry is not limited to an approach to knowing, it is rather an intellectual engagement in interpretations and meaning making that is used to understand the lived world of human beings at a conscious level. Historically, Husserl' (1913/1962) perspective of phenomenology is a science of understanding…

Hermeneutic phenomenology, which is commonly actuated in empirical research, presents many difficult challenges to investigators aiming to defend the credibility of their research. In particular, the phenomenology of lived experience reveals thorny issues of the relationship between lived experience, awareness of an experience, and describing or…

In time, phenomenology has become a viable approach to conducting qualitative studies in education. Popular and well-established methods include descriptive and hermeneutic phenomenology. Based on critiques of the essentialism and receptivity of these two methods, however, this article offers a third variation of empirical phenomenology:…