Difficulties Encountered in the Application of the Phenomenological Method in the Social Sciences

Abstract

While it is heartening to see that more researchers in the field of the social sciences are using some version of the phenomenological method, it is also disappointing to see that very often some of the steps employed do not always follow phenomenological logic. In this article several dissertations are reviewed in order to point out some of the difficulties that are encountered in attempting to use some version of the phenomenolo- gical method. Difficulties encountered centered on the phenomenological reduction, the use of imaginative variation and the feedback to subjects.