What does the term phenomenological qualitative mean?

Question

Social Psychology

Radical Behaviorism

Skinner

Answer 1

I think this might be something more easily defined with the context for which you need to know this. Based on a very brief crash course into phenomenological ontology that I did about 6 months ago and did not understand a word of and the best brief internet skimming I could be bothered with I would say this. Phenomenology in its simplest definition is the study of consciousness. Expanding upon this; it is a philosophical school of thought referring to first hand experience of phenomena as consciousness. The discipline provides some theoretical framework to help in describing how from a first-person perspective, one subjectively experiences phenomena. Phenomenology avoids scientific reductionism and emphasises HOW perception is constituted and not what constitutes the phenomena.

Qualitative research is a method of data collection primarily used amongst the social sciences that is non-numerical. It is usually done through documentary evidence and in-depth interview with experimental participants.

So, in the context that I first encounterd phenomenolgy for example, was as part of a communications degree with a unit on Australian Television which included subjects relating to mass media and its effect upon subjects and asks questions like the age-old "Does Television harm children by exposing them to violence?" To answer this question researchers would have to conduct phenomenological qualitative research to understand how children perceive what they experience from the act of watching Television in order to argue the case one way or the other. To succesfully collect data of this nature, conventional numerical statsitics would be inadequate and so qualitative methods like interview and participant observation would need to be employed to find out how the subjects (the children) experience the phenomenon (Television violence).