Researching lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy

Abstract

This book introduces an approach to qualitative research methodology in education and related fields that is distinct from traditional approaches derived from the behavioural or natural sciences - an approach rooted in the "everday lived experience" of human beings in educational situations. Rather than relying on abstract generalisations and theories, van Manen offers an alternative that taps the unique nature of each human situation. The book offers detailed methodlogical explications and practical examples of hermeneutic-phenomenological enquiry. it shows how to orient oneself to human experience in education and how to construct a textual questions that evokes a fundamental sense of wonder, and it provides a broad and systematic set of approaches for gaining experiential material that forms the basis for textual reflections. The author also discusses the part played by language in educational research and the importance of pursiing human science research critically as a semiotic writing practice. he focuses on the methodlogical function of anecdotal narrative in human sciences research and offers methods for structuring the research text in relation to the particular kinds of questions being studied. Finaly, he eargues that the choce of research method is in iteself a pedagogic commitment and that iut shows how one stands in life as an educator.