DEVELOPMENTAL CRISIS IN EARLY ADULTHOOD: A ...

4.2 Sources of the Composite
The composite methodology is created by combining features from two
different qualitative methods. The first is the Interactive Model of Miles and
Huberman (1994), which continues to be one of the top-selling qualitative
sourcebooks due to its popularity in the educational and social sciences, but is not a
major method within psychology. The second is Interpretative Phenomenological
Analysis (Smith, 1991; Smith and Osborn, 2003), which is one of the most established
qualitative methods in contemporary psychology.
Miles and Huberman’s sourcebook (1994) provides a systematic and
pragmatic guide for the whole qualitative research process from research problem to
final report, including sampling, data collection, analysis, data display, memoing,
reporting and validation. Their approach is called the Interactive Model because all
stages of research are seen to interactively affect one another in feedback loops.
Research involves “shuttling among data reduction, display, and preliminary and
verified conclusions. New data enter the picture, new display forms evolve,
conclusions get bent and revised. All of these will have back effects on each other,
effects that are crucial to the evolving analysis.” (1994, p.310). Some commentaries
have contrasted Miles and Huberman’s approach with Grounded Theory, but when
compared with Strauss and Corbin’s formulation (1998) they have many important
and striking similarities, including an interplay of induction and deduction, a
pragmatic approach to method, a judicious use of a-priori theory to shape analysis, an
analytical focus on both process and structure, an emphasis on insights and ‘aha’
moments, and the use of diagrams, matrices and memos to aid the analysis process.
These and other similarities between Strauss and Corbin’s (1998) Grounded Theory
and the Interactive Model (1994) are illustrated with representative quotes from
respective sourcebooks in Appendix E.
IPA has become a popular and widely used approach within qualitative
psychology due to its clear and unambiguous protocols for data collection and
analysis. IPA starts with the kinds of open research question that fit very well with
the current thesis:
“IPA studies are more often than not concerned with big issues, issues of significant
consequence for the participant either on an ongoing basis or at a critical juncture in
her or his life. These issues are frequently transformative, often they are about
identity and a sense of self, because thorough, in-depth, holistic analyses of individual
accounts of important experiences or events almost always touch on self and
identity.” (Smith and Eatough, 2006, p.327)
51