WORKING AS A COORDINATOR MIDWIFE IN A TERTIARY ...

CHAPTER THREE
Research Methodology
Introduction
This study is based on Heidegger’s interpretive phenomenological, hermeneutic
philosophy (1927/1962) and van Manen’s (1990) research methodology.
Insights reveal themselves to the researcher in phenomenology through “a journey of
‘thinking’ in which the researchers are caught up in a cycle of a reading-writing-dialogue
which spirals onwards” (Smythe, Ironside, Sims, Swenson & Spence, 2008, p.1389). The
simplicity of this explanation however, belies the reality that this methodology is only
trustworthy when the researcher is attuned to the text, has an open mind, is able to
question and allows interpretations to reveal themselves. Ultimately it is the reader who
makes his or her individual judgment regarding the trustworthiness of this study.
I want the reader to be able to identify with what I have written with a sense that it feels
“true” to them. Van Manen (1990) describes phenomenology as being that which
describes how a person “orientates to lived experience”. He continues by explaining
“hermeneutics describes how one interprets the ‘texts of life’” (p.4). This research is not
about proving anything, it is not about transferring what has been revealed to other
situations, rather it ‘is’ my interpretations of the stories of five unique individuals who
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