IPA in Work-Life Balance Research

A. Research Question

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) questions are suitable in trying to find out the perceptions which a person or a group of people hold concerning a certain situation. It seeks to explain how a participant is making sense of the social and personal world. In the selected transcription, the possible research question would be “How are working parents affected by work-life balance?” The IPA question is phrased in this manner because the interviewer wants to understand how parents make sense of work-life balance.

B. Methodology

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)

Jonathan Smith, who is a psychologist, was the first to discover IPA, which is regarded as the modern qualitative methodology. The IPA is used because it is committed to exploring the experiences of a target group or person in a systematic fashion. The IPA research is favoured because its ‘main currency’ is the meaning that people attach to specific experiences they have. The approach contains two main commitments, ‘making sense’ and ‘giving voice.’ These commitments are used by researchers to acquire an ‘insider point of view’ of an experience that a person has lived through. The IPA is double hermeneutic, which means that a participant makes an effort to create sense of their world, and the researcher tries to make sense of a participant’s created sense of the world (Smith & Osborn, 2007).

IPA is best suited to answer the research question and elicit knowledge which is being sought for in this research because it aims at examining the life-world of a participant. It does so by exploring an individual’s experience or account of a particular event, which in this case, is the work-life balance among parents (Smith & Osborn, 2007). Even though the approach may be limited by subjective opinions and conceptions from a participant, which may also be complicated, the limitation is what is required to make sense of their personal world through the process of interpretative actions. Also, IPA is suitable because of its theoretical focus on the participant’s affective, linguistic, physical and cognitive selves by assuming a connection chain between how people talk, their thoughts and emotional states.

Epistemological Positioning of IPA

In philosophy, epistemology is the study of the origin, nature, and the precincts of human knowledge (Martinich & Stroll, 2019). IPA is basically drawn from hermeneutics, phenomenology, and idiography (Noon, 2018). IPA contains aspects of phenomenology which study human experience and the manner which things are understood as they appear to one’s consciousness. Hermeneutics is crucial in IPA as it involves practicing the “art of interpretation” which involves trying to restore meaning. IPA has the quality of idiography where it shows concern for an individual being and is committed towards rigorous analysis of unique, contingent and usually subjective phenomena (Noon, 2018). It is mostly the idiographic quality of IPA which causes the research to have an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the way people develop sense of a specific phenomenon in their unique contexts.

Alternative Approaches to IPA

The IPA is an approach of data analysis that falls under the qualitative research methodology. There exist other approaches to qualitative data analysis, which were considered as alternatives before settling on IPA as the most reliable approach for this context (Alase, 2017). For example, case study approach would have offered knowledge relevant to research based on a case, but it was deemed to be less appropriate because I have been aiming to acquire subjective and experiential knowledge from the participant and thus the IPA approach was deemed the most applicable to my research (Alase, 2017). Also, an ethnographic approach would have offered cultural anthropology knowledge, but it was also deemed inappropriate because I have been aiming to acquire individual perception knowledge, and once again, IPA proved to be the most reliable approach (Sauro, 2015).

About Participant

The participant is a 31-year old woman. Her pseudonym name is Nicole. She has two children. The eldest child is a ten-year-old boy, and the youngest is a six-year-old girl. Nicole works as a saleswoman in a shop that is located in a busy mall in town. In total, she has worked for 8 years. For confidentiality purposes, the participant chose to reveal her first name alone and withheld the names of her children. Also, she kept the name of her workplace confidential. Information collected from the research was stored and kept secure in locked cabinet when it was not in use.

C. Analysis

Before the analysis, the sample specificity was determined by the phenomenon that is being investigated. The research question held relevance to a few people. Thus, it defined the sample boundary. Once the population for the study was identified, effort was made to invite ten parents who have worked for at least five years while having children under their care. This was to ensure that the parents were sufficiently acquainted with engaging in professional life while having to take care of their children. Therefore, a homogenous sample was selected, out of which Nicole was a part of. According to Smith, Flowers & Larkin (2009), the sample size bears little concern. Also, the idiographic commitment embraces the use of sample sizes, which are less concentrated. The data analysis for IPA research is multidirectional, fluid, and iterative. It involves a set of principles that are common that begin with standard analysis of themes. In the first stage, the transcript was read more than once, followed by listening to the transcript audio while reading the written version of it. Afterward, the transcript was annotated, then I went back to the start of the script to note down any emergent themes. Emergent themes were identified from the notes and not directly from the transcript. The emergent themes were specifically grounded on the initial response of the participant. Once emergent themes were developed, a connection was formed between them with regard to their conceptual similarities. This connection resulted in grouping of emergent themes into sub-themes. Others came out as superordinate concepts.

The compilation of sub-themes into the superordinate themes resulted in composite evidence portrayal in the form of a table. In the table, the sub-themes were situated under their respective superordinate themes, along with the relevant quote directly adjacent to each of them. One transcript was analyzed for this study. Therefore, a final table was developed containing the superordinate themes and their equivalent sub-themes.

Analysis of Superordinate theme

The master theme that will be analysed is Nicole’s professional life. This master theme is selected for the analysis because, apart from containing many notable sub-themes, it is the theme that was found to be dominant in the participant’s conversation. Also, I would like to assume the point of view of an organization that gets affected whenever an employee is faced with work-life balance issues (Tinuke, 2014). Work-life balance requires that an employee can divide their commitment and time towards work and their social lives. It is important to manage work-life balance in an individual’s career, failure of which has detrimental effects, which cause an imbalance between a person’s professional career and their social lives. Work-life balance is of great significance especially because it has dire outcomes. There exist some organizations which offer a good balance between work and personal life, while there are others which require that a person makes significant reduction of time spent with family and leisure. When a person spends more than the required time at work, they are likely to develop stress symptoms (Bataineh, 2019). A company that, either unconsciously or consciously, limits the private life of an employee with an unnatural degree of pressure and excessive overtime will result in dissatisfaction and frustration. With this knowledge, employers are growing more cautious about the trends in terms of the changing expectations regarding employee work-life balance. This is because employees whose lifestyle consists a balance between work and leisure are considered to be happy, more motivated and productive.

This is identical to Nicole’s experience. She expresses concerns regarding how much she is unable to place in great effort in activities both at work and at home. Also, she appears to have little confidence in her self at the point where she says “It seems like I can never be enough…” Therefore, to better understand how work-life balance affects working parents, the following sub-themes are discussed in the context of Nicole’s experience.

Reduced Productivity

According to Tinuke (2014), employees who have a hard time trying to balance life at home and at work are likely unable to manage tasks at their places of work, and this reduces their productivity. The subtheme that arises from the professional life master theme from Nicole’s experience is reduced productivity. This is evident where she says that “It seems like I can never be enough, and very often I feel that I just patch things up rather than doing things properly.” While Nicole does not find herself having enough time to focus on activities at home, the same is experienced at work. Her tendency to “patch things up rather than doing thing properly” reflects on the lack of flexibility, likelihood of long working hours and high pressure at work (Tinuke, 2014). The feeling she acquires for “never being enough” transpires her inability to balance family and work life in a suitable fashion. In the long-run, her productivity at work shrinks considerably.

In general, organizations find the effort to promote balance in work-life as a daunting practice (Kohll, 2018). Also, to different employees, apart from Nicole, work-life balance takes different meanings, which presents more complexity to an organization.

Pressure at the Workplace

Pressure at the workplace translates to employees experiencing stress. Nicole’s pressure can be seen where she says that “My colleagues are expecting a lot from me.” Apart from work, Nicole has other competing responsibilities. These responsibilities include childcare, being involved in her children’s school, house cleaning, and cooking. The pressure at work not only has an adverse impact on Nicole’s ability to harmonize family and work, but is also associated with risks to her health, such as depression, weight gain, or consumption of alcohol (Dhas, 2015). The pressure which she acquires at work will most likely culminate in stress because she receives little support from her colleagues. The stress can grow because of the existence of a mismatch between pressure and demand being placed on her and the knowledge and abilities she is expected to possess. Nicole shows concern about pressure when she says that “they just wanna know the answers to things, and you know because I haven’t been able to prepare myself and inform myself about what’s happening that day.” Nicole’s job can, therefore, not be considered as a healthy job, because of the pressure she faces in relation to her resources and her abilities, to the degree of control she has over her work, and to the level of support she acquires from people who matter in her life (Leka & Griffiths, 2005).

Loss of managerial control

Every manager acquires a great sense of fulfillment when they can impart their control of operations in an organization. In her work-life balance experience, Nicole has the feeling that she is losing control as a manager. This is evident where she says “Sometimes I think they must think I am a rubbish manager because I am not informed and on top of things.” Not only does she feel challenged about her ability to exert authority, but also feels bad about the image she creates among her subordinates concerning her ability to lead. Regarding Nicole’s image towards her subordinates, a manager is likely to be perceived as the role model for employees. As a leader, Nicole’s managerial role also affects how other employees perceive work-life balance. Her subordinates’ probable perception that she is a “rubbish manager” will affect the company culture where the workforce will not be as happy and as healthy as they ought to be while taking orders from her (Human Resources Director, 2019).

Poor Preparation

Many professionals engage in mental rehearsal, a technique which prepares their mind for events in the real world. Athletes and psychologists use mental rehearsal by picturing themselves being taken through routines, such as shooting practice, which improves their likelihood of success (Collins, 2018). Nicole’s work-life balance experience limits her from engaging in mental rehearsal. She has limited time to make preparations for what is required in the next day at work. This is evident where she says “…they just wanna know the answers to things and you know because I haven’t been able to prepare myself and inform myself about what’s happening that day, I do not know what to tell them.” From Nicole’s response, it can be gauged that poor work-life balance is affecting her professional performance and endeavor, and lowers her innovativeness. Also, her ill-preparedness is representative of low affective organizational commitment (Bataineh, 2019). This means that Nicole has little belief in the goals set by the organization, and this reduces her likelihood to work to achieve the goals by making early preparations for the activities that will take place the following day at work (Bataineh, 2019).

D. Discussion

The overall objective of this IPA study is to find out how work-life balance affected working parents. The study followed the IPA approach of qualitative research, and one participant’s case was particularly chosen for analysis. Following the analysis of Nicole’s work-life balance, the results can be shown in the superordinate themes along with the corresponding sub-themes. The superordinate themes show that work-life balance affects the professional, personal, and parenting life. The subthemes which arise from these superordinate themes are reduced productivity, pressure at the workplace, loss of managerial control, poor preparation, poor time management, use of social media, low attention directed to children, and parental responsibility. Regarding reduced productivity, it can be judged that Nicole acquires a lot of workloads, which limits her ability to pay full attention to activities in both dimensions. As a result, she ends up ‘patching up’ work, bearing little concern about whether she has done the work correctly or not. Nicole acquires pressure from the workplace such that a lot is expected of her. This is likely to induce stress and induce activities that end up affecting her health. By losing managerial control, Nicole is tarnishing her leadership capabilities, and this, in turn, affects the way employees perceive her as a manager and overall work-life balance in the organization. Work-life imbalance causes Nicole to become poorly prepared for the next day’s activities. This is due to low affective organizational commitment, which grows out of inability to spend ample time at home while trying to prioritize her work (Bataineh, 2019).

Major Findings

The major findings from this assessment are that;

Bad work-life balance imparts psychological pressure for working parents.

Working parents in managerial positions are unable to offer full attention to tasks at work and at home (Collins, 2018).

Working parents are unable to spend quality time with their families when faced with poor work-life balance.

Working parents with poor work-life balance are experience productivity at their places of work (Tinuke, 2014).

Reflexivity

In order to establish a relationship with the participant, a semi-structured interview was selected. The interrogation was guided by an interview schedule, rather than being dictated. A rapport was developed with the participant, and the order of questions was considered of little significance. As the investigator, I was free to probe areas of interest as they came up. The interview followed the participant’s concerns and interests. The main idea of interest and the questions to be pursued were in mind as effort was made to enter, the farthest possible, into the participant’s social and psychological world. Therefore, while the participant offers deeper insight according to the magnitude of the interview, they introduced matters which were not initially thought about. The relationship developed considers the participant as an experiential expert concerning the subject and, therefore, she was granted autonomy to provide their view of the subject (Smith & Osborn, 2007). A semi-structured interview was desired because it exudes empathy and is likely to produce data that is more detailed, even though it takes more time and is difficult to carry out.

References

Alase, A. (2017). The Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA): A Guide to a Good Qualitative Research Approach. International Journal of Education & Literacy Studies, 5(2), 9-19.

Bataineh, K. (2019). Impact of Work-Life Balance Happiness at Work , on Employee Performance. International Business Research;, 12(2). doi:doi:10.5539/ibr.v12n2p99

Noon, E. (2018). Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis: An Appropriate Methodology for Education. Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice, 6(1), 75-83.