Meaningfulness as an epistemologic concept for explicating the researcher's constitutive part in phenomenologic research.

Abstract

In his philosophy, Husserl gave us the epistemologic concept of intentionality. In phenomenologic research, intentionality can be understood in a practical way as our connections to the phenomena that we are studying. When phenomenologic data are the transcripts of interviews, our connections can be seen during data analysis as we identify passages in transcripts that stand out as personally meaningful. Tracing back through our past experiences to the origins of that meaningfulness provides us with a picture of the preunderstanding, assumptions, and beliefs that contribute to our unique perception of the phenomena that we are studying. Concrete guidelines are given for initiating the process of discovering one's constitutive part in phenomenologic studies.