Phenomenology
I created a remixed graphic rendering of the conceptual framework of phenomenology in order to gain understanding (see Figure 1 below).
Two central concepts in phenomenology were the notions of lifeworlds and intentionality. Lifeworlds are described as the immediate experiences of what already exists, emerging from the world in its natural and emerging state (Tracy, 2020). The lifeworld is where the phenomena were experienced and lived (Vagle, 2018). In this research, this lifeworld included both the physical world of the participants' geographic localized ecologies but also their digital and electronic spaces described through I-Technology-World relationships (Idhe, 1990; Rosenberger & Verbeek, 2015). Intentionality was described as the meaning and “connections that emerge in relations, contexts, and across time” (Valentine et al., 2018, p. 463). This use of the word intentionality was not to be confused with the intent, purpose, aim, or plan to do something. For phenomenologists, intentionality described “the way humans are connected meaningfully with the world” (Vagle, 2018, p. 126). Phenomenological researchers were aware of how “words, language, concepts, and theories distort, mediate, and shape raw experience” (Tracy, 2020, p. 65). Criticality and self-reflection were imperative considerations in phenomenological research (Tracy, 2020).
In order to fully understand the post-intentional phenomenological (P-IP) paradigm (Clifden & Vagle, 2020; Vagle & Hofsess, 2016) within which this research was framed, I first explored the differences between the transcendental phenomenology and the hermeneutic, existential phenomenological research paradigms, since these two paradigms were more often applied to phenomenological research. I then uncovered the third phenomenological paradigm and explained why post-intentional phenomenology (Vagle, 2018; Valentine et al., 2018) provided the best fit for this research.
Transcendental Phenomenology
Transcendental, or descriptive phenomenology, was inspired by Husserl’s philosophy of consciousness (Tracy, 2020; Valentine, 2018). How the research participant knows, or is consciously aware of some object, real or imagined, thus holding a ‘consciousness of something’, was foundational when describing the “essence of a phenomenon or experience” (Valentine et al., 2018, p. 464). The researcher must set aside their biases or habits of seeing while conducting the research and data analysis. This was done through a process of bracketing or transcending previously conceived theory, experiences, and understandings. This removed the researcher’s influence from the interpretation of the phenomenon (Valentine et al., 2018; Tracy, 2020). Since meaning was derived from the “intentional relation between subject and object” the research studied the “of-ness” of the phenomenon (Vagle, 2018, p. 39). The focus was on accurate and rich descriptions of the phenomenon as it was understood or known by the research participants.For this research, the phenomenon under scrutiny was the MDL within OEPr. This research shifted away from transcendental phenomenology since I did not ‘bracket’ or suspend my “habits of seeing” (Tracy, 2020, p. 65). It was not just the knowing or understanding of the phenomenon of MDL within an OEPr, as seen through a teacher educator’s experiences that interested me. It was the phenomenon of how participants' MDL shaped micro-practices in becoming open educational practitioners that is the aim of this research.
Interpretive Phenomenology
Interpretive or hermeneutic phenomenology focused on embodiment and being in the lifeworlds and intentions relating to a phenomenon and was grounded in the philosophies of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Gadamer (Valentine et al., 2018). This shift in phenomenology from knowing to being resulted from Heidegger’s ontological interest in how people gave subjective meaning to phenomena. Interpretive phenomenology was not just concerned with consciousness, but in how lifeworlds constituted intelligible structures (Vagle, 2018) and how these meanings were revealed through language and discourse, thus emphasizing the intentionalities within people’s stories as a form of sense-making (Tracy, 2020). Vagle (2018) applied the preposition ‘in’ to describe the ‘in-ness’ of intentionality whereby the human subject is ‘in’ “intersubjective, contextual relationships” (p. 42). Bracketing was replaced by reflective and reflexive practices that ‘bridle’ or restrain the researcher’s positionality and perspectives on the phenomenon (Valentine et al., 2018). In this way, the researcher was not removed from the research, but openly acknowledged their assumptions and positionality while they shared their reflexive understandings of the phenomenon (Valentine et al., 2018).
While a fuller presentation of interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) as outlined by Smith (2004) was beyond the purposes of this research, it was important to reveal three characteristic features of IPA – idiography, inductivity, and interrogation – that influence post-intentional phenomenological research. IPA followed an idiographic research sequence, meaning that the researcher collected one case or participant’s story at a time, bringing it to a degree of closure, before moving on to subsequent cases or conducting a cross-case analysis of themes for convergence or divergence (Smith, 2004). Since I conducted interviews and storying events simultaneously and interwoven in time and space, this excluded IPA as a research method.
Researchers following an IPA strategy inductively analyzed data while being open to unanticipated and emergent themes or topics as well as continuing to interrogate extant literature (Smith, 2004). While these characteristics may be evident in the research, since my process included a fluidity to the coding and analysis that deductively generated themes and categories while I continued to explore patterns within the whole-part-whole descriptions of the phenomena in conjunction with the interview process and the reading of literature.
While transcendental and interpretive forms of phenomenological theory were of interest, it was post-intentional phenomenology (P-IP) that provided the best fit for this research since I posit that the MDL of teacher educators fluent in OEPr will be gathered in a fluid, liminal, boundary crossing, and dynamic praxis that continually shifted toward an ideal of becoming open, becoming literate, and becoming teacher-educator. The next section explores P-IP as it related to this research.