key: cord-0918858-d13bhy08 authors: Dabengwa, Israel Mbekezeli; Raju, Jaya; Matingwina, Thomas title: Applying interpretive phenomenological analysis to library and information science research on blended librarianship: A case study date: 2020-10-05 journal: Libr Inf Sci Res DOI: 10.1016/j.lisr.2020.101055 sha: ddfc0e81afdb1d6c047c10f6833c9520284c77c2 doc_id: 918858 cord_uid: d13bhy08 Although interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) has value in library and information science (LIS), it has low uptake in Africa. The methodological and theoretical approaches to using IPA in LIS and other disciplines are outlined, including a critical analysis of applying double hermeneutics and horizontalization to construct a hermeneutic interpretation. A blended librarianship thesis conducted in Zimbabwe is compared with LIS-based IPA studies and blended librarianship research to reflect the value of IPA methods. The illustration narrates how IPA was implemented within the context of phenomenology to analyse the complexity of academic librarians' views, taking into consideration social and historical environments. The weaknesses of the study are discussed, including the use of quality criteria of credibility, dependability, and transferability. The guided analysis of the study encourages the use of IPA in LIS as it can solve research problems and generate new theories to inform practice, services, philosophy, theory, and institutions. Worldwide, library and information science (LIS) practitioners are occupying non-traditional roles within developing academic, social, and research institutions. Rapid technological advances and academic librarians' need to remain the de facto information center influence this expansion of roles (Bell & Shank, 2007, p.504 ). These roles have been investigated using interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) methods in North America (e.g., VanScoy, 2013) . Yet, there are few African practitioner-based studies that use IPA methods in blended librarianship research (BLR). Blended librarians are part of either information technologists or instructional designer functions (Bell & Shank, 2007, p.3) . As information technologists, blended librarians work with faculty to match technologies for teaching. Then, as instructional designers, blended librarians assist faculty in bridging learning and teaching gaps. This study follows the assumption of Gall, (2014, pp.113-114) , that blended librarianship is a pragmatic philosophy rather than a teaching method. As a practical philosophy, both instructional design and information technologist roles are tools to engage communities with traditional library services (e.g., References and Information Services). As a teaching method, the scope narrows down to library services that focus on teaching (e.g., online learning and flipped classrooms). Blended librarianship is attracting increasing attention because it is a new practice that is changing Zimbabwean librarians' service delivery. The practice of blended librarianship and its perceptions among librarians are under-researched within African LIS research. That is why this study puts IPA into the context of a professional masters' thesis exploring 20 Zimbabwean academic librarians' experiences of blended librarianship (Dabengwa, 2018) . An exploratory study is ideal because little is known about blended librarianship in Zimbabwe, since there is a scarcity of literature and research in Africa. IPA made its first appearance in LIS research through the studies of VanScoy (2012 VanScoy ( , 2013 . Despite the potential use of IPA studies in practitioner-based LIS research, there is a preference for alternative research methods and other phenomenological schools (Jamali, 2018; Ullah & Ameen, 2018) . The researchers found no studies which show the motives behind African researchers' low adoption of IPA in LIS practitioner-based research (i.e., blended librarianship). There is a reported preference for case study or survey designs among African LIS researchers (Mutula & Majinge, 2018) . Perhaps, phenomenological studies are not preferred because of difficulty understanding the underlying philosophical issues (Creswell, 2013, p.94; Vagle, 2018, p.45) . For example, Ngulube and Ukwoma (2019) found that some published African LIS research does not report philosophical issues (e.g., epistemology and ontology). The alternatives of IPA research have failed to provide experiential knowledge, intentions of the first-hand actors, and motivations of behaviours regarding blended librarianship. For instance, Held (2010) and Perini (2015 Perini ( , 2016 apply case study research design. Cherinet (2018) uses the Delphi technique, content analysis of job advertisements, and qualitative interviewing. At the same time, Shank (2006) and Raju (2017) conduct content analyses of job advertisements. Typically, case study research designs use "how" and "why" questions regarding a phenomenon (Yin, 2016) . The case study method makes use of various information sources that may not have direct experience with blended librarianship (e.g., reports from onlookers). The Delphi technique solicits consensus from a panel of experts with knowledge of a phenomenon, without seeking their direct experience (Cherinet, 2018, p.94) . Whereas, researchers using content analysis study documents instead of people. Albeit, these research designs offer fewer possibilities to seek relationships to behaviours or underlying conditions of firsthand actors. Because of a dearth of studies applying IPA, LIS researchers may face challenges when discovering alternative theories on blended librarianship and other practitioner-based topics. If there is a paucity of LIS studies using IPA, and if IPA has the potential to study practitioners' first-hand experiences, this paper uses a real-world experience of BLR to infer the value of IPA methods. The term "phenomenology" has several descriptions, perceptions, and purposes, depending on its theoretical and practical contexts (Adams & Van Manen, 2008, p.614) . Phenomenology studies the meaning of life experiences (e.g., blended librarianship) using firsthand accounts (e.g., librarians). This way, phenomenology focuses on experiences that are significant enough for a person to feel, reflect, and think their meanings (Creswell, 2013, p.83) . There are two descriptive and interpretive phenomenology (i.e., hermeneutics) schools. These variations of phenomenology explore the lived experiences of people as part of the shared human consciousness (Creswell, 2013, p.80) . The distinctions lie in what they explain as interpretations rather than their reporting of experiences. For example, both schools develop the essence (the end product of a phenomenological study) from grouping significant events from one or more individuals (Creswell, 2013, p.83) . The descriptive phenomenologist seeks an unbiased description of experiences reflecting Edmund Husserl's bracketing rule. Descriptive phenomenologists report cases with no prior assumptions (bracketing the context) to form a phenomenological explanation or essence (Smith & Osborn, 2007, p.53) . However, there is doubt whether it is achievable to perform qualitative research without presuppositions or attention to the context of a study (Patton, 2015, p.191) . That is why bracketing means a "phenomenological attitude" (i.e., reflexively questioning one's presuppositions to open up to alternative possibilities) (Patton, 2015, p.191) . Likewise, descriptive phenomenologists aim to get an essence of the study, that is, an invariant structure of the phenomenon which is transferable to various contexts (Vagle, 2018, p.36) . The essence is taken as a snapshot of reality (i.e., aiming to account for the past, present, and predict future behaviour). Conversely, interpretive phenomenology explores participants' accounts on objects alongside an investigator's position following Martin Heidegger's axioms (Smith & Osborn, 2007, p.53) . Interpretive phenomenology describes objects beyond words in conversation. Interpretive phenomenology puts an ongoing opinion into the significance of words (i.e., interpretive hermeneutics), within an ongoing circle of the phenomenon's context and researchers' presuppositions (i.e., the hermeneutical circle). Hence, the researcher "mediates" the interpretation from diverse meanings (Creswell, 2013, p.81) . Instead of seeking an essence (generalisability), the interpretive phenomenologist looks for an interpretation or understanding of a phenomena among participants (Vagle, 2018, p.36) . Accordingly, there is a close alignment between interpretive phenomenology and IPA. They both discern people's experiences using an author's assumptions while disclosing the procedures taken to interpret and understand a phenomena. This form of reporting is called "reflexivity." For illustration, there is a contrast between a description of blended librarianship as compared to interpreting opinions about it. The descriptive phenomenologist studies the roles and functions of blended librarianship without preconceptions, looking for insights from the data. Whereas, an interpretive phenomenologist seeks to explain the librarian's opinions using assumptions, literature, and theory. IPA is a qualitative method that emerged from phenomenologists in psychological research (Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009) . IPA is an inductive approach that aims to conduct an in-depth exploration of participants' sense-making of personal and social worlds. Sense-making is preferred instead of unbiased statements. Under the circumstances, IPA assumes a connection between participants' narratives and their emotional, mental, and situated contexts (Smith & Osborn, 2007, p.54) . The IPA method is a middle ground between the descriptive and interpretive phenomenological schools (Pietkiewicz & Smith, 2012, p.364) . For example, IPA correctly represents participants' interpretations of experiences and adds the researcher's assumptions of these interpretations. IPA realises that objectivity is not possible because a researchers' context may weave into the analysis (Smith & Osborn, 2007, p.53) . Hence, IPA borrows axioms from ideography, hermeneutics, and phenomenology (Pietkiewicz & Smith, 2012, p.364 ). IPA interrelates hermeneutics and interpretive phenomenology methods (Budd, 1995, p.308) . Hermeneutics assumes that the participant's experience relies on an investigator's understanding (Budd, 1995, pp.308-309) . Similarly, interpretive phenomenology uses knowledge of participants' experiences to build a researchers' interpretation (Budd, 1995, pp.308-309) . For the above reasons, phenomenologists refer to IPA as "double hermeneutics." This reference is because of the two-stage process for analysing people's knowledge (Smith & Osborn, 2007, p.53) . The steps of double hermeneutics are: 1. First, participants make an understanding of their practices in narratives (i.e., expressing their social context in interviews); 2. Second, the researcher summarizes these narratives to make sense of the experiences as one common meaning (Pietkiewicz & Smith, 2012, p.362) . The researchers' sensemaking includes pre-understanding of the phenomena (i.e., blended librarianship literature and the participants' context), obtaining a textual meaning from the interview transcripts, and interpreting the experiences in line with the research question. Smith et al. (2009, p. 3) urge IPA researchers to immerse themselves into participants' life-world to understand subjective contexts, but with higher self-informed and systematic steps. These self-informed procedures include cautions to safeguard the researcher's worldviews from overlapping that of the participants in the hermeneutical circle. The hermeneutic interpretation should show examples from the data and outside the participants' background. In this way, assumptions from the literature or the public may explain behaviours from the data (Allan & Eatough, 2016, p.348 ). Ideography is the analysis of transcriptions on a case-by-case basis, searching for patterns across the cases, while meticulously describing I.M. Dabengwa, et al. Library and Information Science Research xxx (xxxx) xxxx specific events and situations. Ideography entails identifying distinct parts of each case and then balancing each with what is typical or different from other facts (Allan & Eatough, 2016, p.348) . Therefore, ideography differs from making generalizations about groups to populations (Pietkiewicz & Smith, 2012, p.364) . In this way, ideography applies to subjective generalizations (e.g., within the data or setting) instead of external generalizations (Maxwell, 1992, p.294 ). Table 1 presents the methodological congruence to the study's interpretation using the research objectives set out and IPA methods. The interviewees had various job titles and experiences of blended librarianship because of cognitive processes and practical opportunities. Participants in IPA research are experts of their experience and are recruited because of this expertise (Allan & Eatough, 2016, p.408) . As a result, the sample represents blended librarianship practice from science and technology universities that have functions of blended librarianship. The first authors' position in an academic library created safety and trust among the participants. To recruit this group of interviewees, a qualitative survey of one hundred and one librarians from six state-run universities was screened for blended librarianship experiences. The universities were purposively selected for variations in institutional resources and activities. Librarians were asked to report on the identity, image, and meaning of blended librarianship roles within specific contextual parameters. For example, at the high, middle, and lower levels and more context-bound levels (see Table 2 ). Librarians with top scores were invited to take part in in-depth interviews (Dabengwa, 2018) . Later, data saturation rules were applied with the use of "case contrasts" (e.g., differences between cases), instead of the criterion of a sample size to continue data collection. The sample was then narrowed to 20 participants. Table 3 show "horizontalization" (i.e., listing significant accounts of the subject and analysing each account with corresponding value during the analysis) (Creswell, 2013, p.237 ). The contrasts between the participants' experiences reconstruct a composite report. Horizontalization includes: 1. Significant statements of experiences -Wholly reading all the transcripts to explore "real" experiences of a phenomenon (e.g., blended librarianship), and how these experiences emerge in the definite work contexts. Significant statements (i.e., a word, groups of words, or a passage) are given equal attention, then extracted from the transcripts, with the use of the research question(s). For example, the significant statements in the paper establish: (a) an awareness of blended librarianship; (b) its reason ( (Creswell, 2013, p.237 ). Maxwell's (1992, p.291-293) criteria of theoretical validity was considered to select the theory. Theoretical validity looks beyond the internal relationships of a theory to its legitimate application within a context. For example, the paper uses Lave and Wenger's (1991) Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP) theory to interpret both individual and group practices of blended librarianship. LPP is a useful theory of comprehending librarians' participation in work processes and negotiation of identities and roles. 4. General summary or interpretation -This is a composite summary of the phenomenon that shows an interplay between general themes and structural descriptions. The hermeneutic interpretation that is produced is supported by word-for-word excerpts from participants' significant statements. The quality criteria of credibility, dependability, and transferability criteria assess reliability and validity in the case. These measures connect and overlap each other (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2012, p.67 ). Credibility measures the extent to which participants' views match the researcher's portrayal of them (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2012, p.77). In this way, peculiarities of blended librarianship were identified in the The study shows different levels of blended librarianship using a taxonomy to highlight different levels of mastery of blended librarianship (see Fig. 1 ). "I have learnt technologies that apply to the classroom. Yet, what I am doing in my current role is basic" "I am trying to improve my delivery of technology services" "Systems librarianship is still a grey area for me" Instructional Design Roles "I'm a blended librarian because of the response that I get from faculty regarding my teaching roles" "I need more background knowledge in my faculty's subject area" "There is still room for development. For example, I need more training on instructional design" Undefined Roles "There is still a lot that I need to learn" "There are duties that I may not do at the moment" Academic libraries that lack requisite facilities are understaffed and have not trained staff for blended librarianship. I.M. Dabengwa, et al. Library and Information Science Research xxx (xxxx) xxxx narratives. These peculiarities were assumed to be experiences of blended librarianship. In expansion, the diverse backgrounds among librarians were noted to seek the possibilities for rich and unique cases (see Table 2 ). The key features of dependability include transparency in the data collection procedures and when interpreting the data (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2012, p.78) . These qualities are essential because differences in research contexts cannot be determined in advance. An inquiry/independent audit (i.e., having an external researcher to examine the transcripts and emerging themes) was applied to assess the consistency of responses from various librarians to reduce the investigators' bias. Transferability refers to the extent to which similar processes of research work in other communities and settings (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2012, p.78) . The data includes thick, rich, and detailed descriptions of interpretations elaborating both present and transferable contexts of the phenomenon. Thick reports refer to describing an event in sufficient detail to "permit a reader to test a personal construction in other nonlocal settings" (Lincoln & Guba, 2013, p.79) . The librarians identified with the blended librarianship role because of their reliance on faculty liaisons, teaching information literacy skills (ILS), and low-threshold technology applications (LTAs). However, the librarians lack supportive resources (e.g., classrooms and eLearning Management Systems) and autonomy to teach in classrooms. They (librarians) adopted blended librarianship within the periphery of faculty and students, hoping to attract faculty and students. For instance, librarians taught credit-bearing ILS courses, but the teaching does not guarantee a librarian cooperation from the faculty and students. The traditional subservient role of the academic library may cause this lack of cooperation. Also, librarians' lack of critical competences and resources deters them from becoming "fully blended librarians," as suggested by Held (2010, p.158) . Held argues that the practice of blended librarianship found in the literature differs from real-world contexts. Sometimes faculty and students work without librarians, ILS lacks grading, and there are negative attitudes among communities. As a result, the paper developed a two-by-two matrix from the findings, the assumption that there is a fully blended librarian, and the application of LPP (see Fig. 2 ). The theory of LPP was used to examine the differences between various librarian's practices (as a tool for ideography). Variations of mastery between cases are presented to form the hermeneutical interpretation. The matrix accounts for negative and positive applications of blended librarianship, librarians' competence, and institutional resources. The librarians reported a need for additional training to match lecturing staffs' competencies and legitimately take part in the learning, teaching, and research process. When librarians increase their presence in instructional design and or information technologist roles, they move into another quadrant of mastery until they become fully blended librarians. However, each level of the librarian's transition is fraught with a unique set of problems. Hence, the matrix in Fig. 2 shows that periphery participation leads to mastery (fully blended librarianship), consistent with Held's (2010, p.162-166) findings. The paper aligns IPA methods towards Heidegger's interpretive phenomenology to study blended librarianship. Hence, blended librarianship was treated as a social, cultural, and historical construction (epistemology). Data was collected data from various librarians (ontology). The interpretation relies on librarians' experiences, and the researchers' understanding of the phenomena (interpretivism). In this way, the researcher became a research instrument, collecting data, interacting with the academic librarians, and interpreting their experiences of blended librarianship. Much greater insights were obtained from first-hand data collection, enabling differences of blended librarianship practices to be spotted as could not have been obtained from case study, content analysis, Delphi method, and survey research designs. Alternative research designs would not have been able to balance between librarians' voices and the researchers' interpretation (e.g., assumptions, literature and use of theory). Dabengwa (2018) uses content analysis and the survey method but adds first-hand perspectives from librarians to support and fill in gaps to produce a virtual experience. Therefore, the interpretation obtained in the paper is a virtual experience (i.e., seen through the lens of the participants and the researcher) of what it means to be a blended librarian in a low resource setting such as Zimbabwe. In this manner, IPA draws out the interplay of personalities and negotiations of power from various practical experiences at each university. Smith et al. (2009) recommended the framework (an easy-to-use guideline for assessing validity in qualitative studies) from Yardley (2000) to ensure quality in IPA studies. Yardley's guidelines consist of four criteria: sensitivity to context, commitment and rigour, transparency and coherence, and impact and importance). Studies such as VanScoy (2012, 2013) apply Yardley's (2000) quality check. This study used a general criterion of assessing validity in qualitative (i.e., credibility, dependability, and transferability). Findings indicate no difference between these quality criteria as their concepts mirror and overlap each other. For example, credibility mirrors transparency, and coherence. Dependability may be paired with commitment and rigour. Transferability covers both sensitivity to the context and impact and importance. The rigour of an inquiry may be compromised if no quality criteria is applied or the applied criteria does not have the capabilities to measure reliability, and validity. For example, the quality of the sampling, data collection methods, and IPA analysis of studies lacking quality criteria may not bear the experiential nature needed in IPA research. Dabengwa (2018) illuminates that the transition to becoming a fully blended librarian is not a straight path. Some levels intercede the transition from novice to expert. At the time the matrix was developed, the transition from novice to expert was conceptualised as linear (evolutionary). The assumption was that librarians gradually move from one quadrant to another when they increase their skills and participate in additional roles, until they become fully blended librarians. Recently, Cherinet (2018, p.95) has conceptualised that blended roles are both evolutionary and revolutionary. Cherinet suggests that librarians may gradually develop into new roles or as new roles are imposed them. Future usage of the matrix may adapt the concept of revolutionary blended roles. Hence, increased roles and new skills have the potential to move a librarian from one quadrant to another without going through other quadrants. The adaptation is an appreciation that some skills and work contexts may not develop incrementally but result from the revolutionary pull and push factors. For example, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), has pushed some librarians into blended roles without adequate time for training. Finally, Perini (2015) brings to attention the faculty status for blended professionals (librarians). He finds faculty status a prerequisite of creating liaisons and gaining the cooperation of faculty and students. Unlike their counterparts in North America, most African librarians do not have faculty status. Without faculty status, Zimbabwean librarians operate at the periphery of both faculty and students. Dabengwa (2018) reflects that librarians create strategic liaisons within their communities to bridge the lack of faculty status. Perhaps Fig. 2 applies to contexts where librarians may not enjoy faculty status, lack dedicated personnel or competences in either instructional design or information technologist roles. This study develops the hermeneutic interpretation through a spiral of narrative activities (see Fig. 2 ). The spiralled steps of horizontalization do not differ from the data analysis precepts recommended by Smith and Osborn (2007, pp.66-75) . In both cases, the methods adhere to ideography in summing up participant's accounts to develop the interpretation (Jones, 2008, pp.486-487) . Attaining a hermeneutic interpretation of blended librarianship is difficult. There is a lack of defined boundaries between the literature and real-life situations. Thus, both creative and interpretive processes produce the interpretation of blended librarianship without compromising individual cases. A hermeneutic interpretation is a fiction -it is an invention created to self-consciously interpret experiences (Zwadlo, 1997) . A fiction differs from a hypothesis because the latter verifies the truth from responses. At the same time, the former justifies the answers to fit into an absolute reality. Zwadlo (1997, p.110 ) provides a commentary on several disciplines, including the hard sciences, in which fictions resolve research problems. He illustrates this assertion with examples, such as the use of imaginary numbers in mathematics, classification schemes in LIS, and the "average person" in demographics. Thus, readers must appreciate that a hermeneutic interpretation is not the entire truth about a phenomenon. To some extent, interpretations are an answer close to the truth, available for verification in different contexts. The elements of an interpretation may fit into a typical case or an average person in a particular context, variations of the person, and the setting (VanScoy & Evenstad, 2015, p.341) . Raising this observation is an appreciation of the difficulties in realising a phenomenon's universal interpretation applicable to various persons and contexts. It is important to note that variations in interpretations help to I.M. Dabengwa, et al. Library and Information Science Research xxx (xxxx) xxxx appreciate the distinct characteristics of practitioners and their situated context. In this way, practitioner-based studies such as Dabengwa (2018) , offer possibilities to solve LIS problems of practice. This information is useful when planning programs, introducing new services, or improving current ones. For example, the matrix helps to understand the mastery of blended librarianship, identify various training needs, and projected outcomes in work contexts. While this paper has explored the interpretation of blended librarianship from the perspective of the academic librarian, it would also be of benefit to know the user/community experiences regarding academic librarians' blended roles. Perhaps, the experiences of the communities served by librarians may be used to refine the model in Fig. 2. IPA enables researchers to identify different environmental and mental experiences of the same object, situation, or concept (i.e., blended librarianship). Understanding these meanings opens the possibility to adjust or realise more consistent perceptions of practice-related problems. This understanding could improve library processes and service quality. With pure research, understanding these differences may lead researchers to new theories related to blended librarianship, technology in libraries, or library management. IPA studies require a firm adherence to rigour and quality to interpret phenomena and reduce challenges in methods. The case met this criterion, guarding against pitfalls unique to it. Thus, documenting the shortfalls of the study is necessary to guide LIS research and other disciplines in refining the IPA method. The outcome of this study is to encourage both novices and experienced researchers to apply IPA to solve problems and generate alternative theories that inform LIS practice and theory. 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The Library Quarterly The research team would like to extend their gratitude to Sarah Young from Carnegie Mellon University for her invaluable copyediting work.