Misinterpretive phenomenology: Heidegger, ontology and nursing research

This paper aims to throw some light on Husserlian phenomenology and Heideggerian hermeneutics, and to discuss their influences and applicability to the nursing research agenda. There are definite distinctions between Husserlian transcendental phenomenology and Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology and these distinctions have implications for the methodology employed. These traditions are discussed with respect to some fundamental research issues: the philosophical perspectives of the traditions and the notion that data that result from the inquiry are created by the interaction between researcher and researched. The central recommendation in this paper is that nurse researchers appraise the philosophical underpinnings of the methodologies they pursue.

The thesis of this paper is that researchers working in interpretive traditions need to address three central issues: philosophy, rigour and representation. This paper discusses the process of an hermeneutic inquiry as a research methodology used in seeking to understand the experiences of older patients admitted to an acute hospital. The methodology includes the philosophical framework and assumptions underpinning the research. Philosophical hermeneutics guides the inquiry as a reflection of the research process. Three issues concerning legitimation of the hermeneutic research process arise: the philosophical underpinnings of the methodology, representation, or the participation of the researcher in making data, and rigour, or the way in which trustworthiness of hermeneutic research can be established. I recommend that Gadamer's primacy of application to the understanding of texts can also be applied to understanding of health environments. I conclude that Gadamer's post-modern sensibility regarding text and the framework of Guba & Lincoln's fourth generation evaluation are compatible within a hermeneutic inquiry.