Qualitative Study: Perceptions of Mental Health in Pastors

This report presents a qualitative research study utilizing Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to explore the perceptions of pastors regarding mental health. The study's rationale is grounded in understanding how individuals interpret their lived experiences, with IPA's phenomenological, interpretative, and idiographic components providing a framework for in-depth analysis. The research focuses on Methodist pastors in Malaysia, employing purposeful sampling to select participants with similar experiences. Data collection involved one-on-one interviews, transcribed verbatim and analyzed through coding, bracketing, and data modification techniques to ensure reliability and validity. The findings, validated through data triangulation, aim to offer insights into pastors' experiences with mental challenges and their willingness to seek help, contributing to a deeper understanding of mental health within this specific demographic.

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Perceptions of pastor regarding Mental Health

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Table of Contents
Chapter 3: Rationale, Data Analysis and Data Modification..........................................................3
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Rationale for Qualitative Research..................................................................................................3
The participants of study.................................................................................................................5
Data Analysis...................................................................................................................................6
Data Modification............................................................................................................................7

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Chapter 3: Rationale, Data Analysis, and Data Modification
Introduction
This chapter explicates the rationale for the selected qualitative research methods, the
selection process of the participants of the research and data analysis from the collected
information. This will be done by linking the objective of the research study with the analysis of
the information collected through the selected qualitative research methodology.
Rationale for Qualitative Research
A rationale is a logical explanation for a certain course of action selected. It helps in
understanding the importance and necessity of the research that is being conducted.
The research questions that were first identified for this research in the literature review will
be analyzed and scrutinized using the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). IPA is a
psychological approach in order to understand the context with which an individual interprets his
or her personal lived experience. The sole focus of IPA lies in understanding the meaning an
experience has to the participants and how the participants interpret that experience. It also helps
the researcher understand the impact an experience has on the participant and how it has affected
the participant’s way of living after. IPA has three important components, those when combined
can be useful in providing a detailed examination of a personal lived experience by capturing its
"experimental and qualitative importance.” The three components of the Interpretative
Phenomenological Analysis are phenomenological, interpretative and idiographic components.
These three components help in understanding the impact a personal lived experience had on an
individual. (Belser et al.2017)
IPA helps the research study by first, understanding the perception of the individual related to
the experience. Experiences are created depending on the reaction the individual has on an event
that has occurred in their daily life. These reactions and their actions depending on the situation
together make up the experience of the person. These experiences are then stored into the
individual's memories. Such an approach helps the research as it becomes synonymous with

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understanding the pastors’ experiences relating to mental challenges and determines their
willingness to seek help. (Gill, 2015)
The interpretative component of the IPA is two layered. This component is also known as
hermeneutic. This component is helpful because humans always work towards making sense of a
particular situation as they are constantly trying to understand the world. The interpretative
component is important and helpful for the process of this research study. First it helps in
understanding the individual's perspective of a "lived experience," and second, it helps the
examiner interpret the interpretation of the individuals. Active participation of the researcher is
required in IPA as the researcher has to comprehend the inner world of the participant. The
process includes the research understanding of what the participant understands about a
particular scenario. Therefore, IPA is an interpretative process. (McCormack & Joseph, 2018)
The third component of IPA is the idiography of the situations that expect the researcher to
dig deep into a case and understand the details of the participants' world completely. The
research will have to be completely focused on the participant and his or her experience in order
to understand the human nature and responses of the individual well. The researcher should
invest time completely in the process of the research without taking it lightly. This is the
idiographic approach of the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). A great
commitment is required from the researcher as s/he has to understand the depth of the experience
and bring forth the re-evaluation of the same experience. IPA requires the researchers to have
great listening skills as they must be able to comprehend the participants’ experience and
examine the experience so that it makes sense to the researcher. (Lerner & Lerner, 2018)
This will be helpful for the research as the research question can only be answered after a
rigorous analysis of the responses of the participants involved in the process. In order to
comprehend the perception of a pastor towards mental health assistance the four psychological
assumptions made by Creswell about IPA will be used. The four assumptions are ontological,
epistemological, axiological, and rhetorical that helps in understanding the interrelationships
between the various elements of an experience. According to Creswell, these assumptions will be
important in order to scrutinize, interpret and comprehend the issues related to any qualitative
studies. (Smith & Osborn, 2015)

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This research study is dependent on figure out the life experiences of the participants in order to
seek mental assistance.
The participants of the study
For an IPA, selection of participants becomes more important as they need to be sampled
according to the experiences they have. This is imperative as the basis of the research requires
the participants have had common experiences and have been a self-identified breakdown and an
overwhelming level of stress in the past.
A purposeful sampling procedure is used so that the selected participants’ are similar and have
had similar experiences.
For this research, the participants selected:
 Should be Methodist Pastors had have been serving the church for years within Malaysia.
 Must be males that lie in the demographic of 35 to 60 years
 Need to be ordained in Malaysia at a Methodist Church
 Must have attended the Methodist Theological Seminary for their ministerial education
 Should have 10 to 30 years of experiences in both rural and urban settings.
The basic sample set for an IPA lies between 3-15 participants only to allow a deep
evaluation of the experiences instead of only the basic evaluation. IPA believes in an in-depth
analysis instead of a broad one. Therefore, depending on these criteria, six participants were
selected for the research. One on one taped interviews would be conducted to better understand
the experiences of these pastors. IPA can be successful if there are a small and constricted group
of participants selected as it allows the researcher to articulate an in-depth evaluation of the
personal live experiences of every participant. (Picione, 2015)
A personal request was first made to the potential participants in order to participate in the
research. After this, a formal request was sent to the participants through emails and telephone
calls to explain the objectives of the research and expectations the researcher had from them as
participants. A consent form had been signed by the participants that assured them the safety and
confidentiality of their personal information along with any data that would be collected while

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the research was being conducted. They were also informed that they could withdraw from the
research at any time. The process of the research to be conducted was explained to them, and the
researcher’s intention of the collected data was also elucidated well. (VanScoy & Evenstad,
2015)
It was important to carry out this activity as it would have helped the participants to be honest
throughout the research process without the fear of being known or loss of privacy. They need to
trust the researcher so that they would be free to share their experiences without holding out any
information. Only after the consent from the six participants was received, the research was
conducted.
As promised to the six pastors of the Methodist Church, their names or any information relating
them to the research will not be revealed in this research.
Data Analysis
The data analysis was done according to the procedure described by the Interpretative
Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). It was done by analyzing the transcripts of the interviews
conducted. The interviews had been transcribed verbatim into hard copies. These were then
analyzed. The transcripts were inspected and examined multiple times. The audios of the
interviews had been played numerous times in order to identify the patterns of the experiences
and the responses relating to it. These transcripts were then marked for several terminologies
used and categorized according to the responses of the participants. This helped the researcher to
better understand the responses of the participants and their thought process while experiencing
the scenarios described by them. (Boden et al. 2019)
The coding process was done as suggested by Alas, by first converting long and verbal
responses into short and important statements. Participants had been encouraged to share every
small bit of information regarding the experience. Therefore, it was an important step for the
researcher to select parts of these responses that were useful. These parts of the responses were
then further shortened to smaller parts that made meaningful statements. The whole statement
explained the basic and underlying meaning of the experience and the participant’s response to
it. This allowed the researcher to understand the basic meaning of the context (Charlick et al.
2016). The responses were then derived into small meaningful words that described the core of

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the matter and experiences shared by the participants. The researcher was, therefore, able to
understand the different patterns and themes of the experiences. It also allowed the researcher to
gain an insight into the experience shared also understand the different kinds of experiences that
were faced by the participants. (Alase, 2017)
The researchers are required to bracket themselves from the experiences of the participants
so that they do not mess up the research. It is important to separate one from such experiences so
that the judgment for the research does not mix with their own experiences leading to a disorder
in the research process. Bracketing helps the researcher understand the experiences without any
biases to the participants and clouding of judgment. The researcher has followed his code
throughout the process of data collection and analysis to gain fruitful results from the research
study. The transcription had been proof read by the researcher and checked by a colleague so that
there were no mistakes and errors in the document. (Macleod et al. 2016)
Data Modification
Data modification is done in order to make sure that the data is reliable and valid. It is
important to retain information for modification. The original audios and transcripts of the
interviews have been preserved in to maintain the integrity of the information. This information
was reread numerous times so that the researcher became familiar with each and every case. Re-
reading and listening to the audios have helped the researcher understand each case well and
ensured that the data analysis drawn from this information was valid, reliable and transparent.
Information regarding the participants and their identity have been kept a secret and not been
disclosed throughout the entire research as was promised to them. (Smith et al. 2017)
The findings from these reports were also checked by a qualified counselor to improve the
validity and check the accuracy of the information that was collected. This process is known as
data triangulation. Data triangulation is done in order to increase the credibility of the
information obtained. During this process too, the identity of the participants had not been
disclosed. After the information was verified by the counselor, the researcher created the report
of the findings, and proof read it once so that they align with the objectives of the research. This
study was also proof read by a colleague so that there were no mistakes made. (Charlik et al.
2016)

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