DEVELOPMENTAL CRISIS IN EARLY ADULTHOOD: A ...

IPA can employ any written data source from which the experience and
lifeworld of the individual in question can be inferred. This inference occurs by way
of a ‘double hermeneutic’, in which the researcher interprets an individual’s own
interpretations of their experience (Smith and Osborn, 2003). An inductive mindset is
paramount throughout an IPA project; it emphasises that findings and conclusions
emerge from the data, rather than being imposed on it. Case-intensive analysis should
be employed to prevent rash interpretation or inappropriate theorising (Smith, 1991).
Theory can be questioned by research, but is subordinate to individual cases at all
times.
IPA and Miles and Huberman’s approach have methodological and
philosophical parallels that make the composite synthesis possible. Theory/model
generation is a valid research aim in both the Interactive Model and IPA. Both agree
that one can develop some kind of pattern, process or structure that holds for multiple
cases. Miles and Huberman seek explanatory and causal theory, whereas IPA is far
more focused on descriptive and experiential models.
Both take a middle-way approach to the realism–constructivism polarity.
They agree that all science is interpretative, constructive and imperfect but based on a
real world nonetheless. As was earlier mentioned, Miles and Huberman’s approach is
sometimes criticised in psychology for being almost positivist; it seems to imply that
we can discover a real world independent of our own mental and linguistic apparatus.
Yet like IPA theirs is clearly a critical realism; they consider that we are limited by
our interpretive apparatus to know the real world imperfectly, and that in research we
try to transcend our personal biases and prejudices to grasp real patterns and
processes:
“We agree with the interpretivists who point out that knowledge is a social and
historical product and that “facts” come to us laden with theory. We affirm the
existence and importance of the subjective, the phenomenological, the meaningmaking
at the center of social life. Our aim is to register and “transcend” these
processes by building theories to account for a real world.” (Miles and Huberman,
1994, p.4)
For both methods, data analysis starts with an intensive examination of a
single case, no matter how many in the sample. Miles and Huberman say:
“It is crucial to have understood the dynamics of each particular case before
proceeding to cross-case explanations. Without that, superficiality sets in.” (Miles
and Huberman, 1994, p.207)
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