This dissertation investigated the meanings students from beginner jazz ensembles ascribe to learning jazz improvisation through Dalcroze-inspired activities. Over the course of ten weeks, students from three respective beginner jazz ensembles were exposed to Dalcroze-inspired activities as the medium for learning to improvise. The sessions were held on a weekly basis, facilitated by the researcher. Hermeneutic phenomenology guided the research procedures. In-depth interviews, personal reflections, participant reflection essays as well as video recordings were the methods of data collection. Through the use of Atlas.ti 7, the data were organized and analysed by means of coding and categorisation, which led to the identification of five themes. The five themes that emerged from the data analysis were: feeling the music in my body, supporting development as a jazz musician, building character, building relationships, and stimulating and motivating learning. This study provides an understanding of the connection between jazz improvisation and Dalcroze Eurhythmics as well as how students experience learning jazz improvisation through Dalcrozeinspired activities. Through this understanding this study proposes a more holistic approach to jazz improvisation teaching that can inform further research and application of Dalcroze Eurhythmics in jazz pedagogy. / MMus (Musicology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Utilising a hermeneutic phenomenological approach twenty women’s experiences of breast cancer were explored through semi-structured interviews at three time points during their healthcare trajectory from recent diagnosis to early follow-up. Phenomenological analysis guided by van Manen’s (1990) principles revealed numerous multifaceted themes some of which were time limited while others spanned the data collection period. Use was made of an adapted life grid approach in order to enhance the implicit meanings to be elicited through interpretation of text. Central themes depicting the medicalisation of breast cancer, perceptions and management of the body and participants’ emotional journey were uncovered. Breast cancer was found to represent a biographical disruption that had a long-term impact on a woman’s body, self, identity and sense of embodiment. Changes to the body, due to breast cancer treatment, and an altered way of being in the world, elicited disruption to the body-self relationship, a separation that was reinforced by the healthcare system. Participants were found to adopt a variety of coping strategies to manage ongoing change and the stress elicited by experiencing breast cancer as a chronic illness. Avoidance, information management, conscious passivity in treatment decision-making and positive cognitive restructuring are examples of such mechanisms. However, women’s experiences of each theme identified and the emergence and maintenance of these themes varied according to women’s biography, diagnosis and prescribed treatment regime, cancer schema, and social support. Accordingly, models of care must address women’s individual experiences and recognise their changing needs throughout the year post diagnosis.

Abstract The aim of this thesis is to present a theoretically consistent conceptualization of knowledge creation as an interactive event and to test this in a working community in a methodologically coherent manner. This thesis examines the key problems in the body of research of knowledge creation in the field of Knowledge Management, which is attached to the idea of knowledge as an asset inside a human mind, but simultaneously promotes a view of interaction, based on hermeneutic understanding. The study proposes an alternative way to conceptualize and examine knowledge creation, based on hermeneutic phenomenology of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Martin Heidegger. The foci are on the conceptions of a human being and interaction as play. On the basis of the research literature, a framework for examining knowledge creation was developed. The framework was empirically tested in a multi-organizational and multi-professional working community of librarians and teachers, participating in The Joy of Reading Program in Finland. Along with the research literature, the triangulated data consist of ethnographic observations and video recordings of the community’s gatherings, its members’ interviews and produced documents. The data were analyzed through a qualitative approach. The results show that the phenomenological conceptions of temporality of a human being and play are suitable for understanding being in the knowledge-creating interaction, as they give means to understand the meaningfulness of past experiences, but promote an open attitude towards future possibilities in a way which promotes knowledge creation. Studying interactive events allows for an understanding of how the phenomenon of knowledge creation can be examined as a collective accomplishment. The importance of flexible circumstances is emphasized to promote interaction. The playful mode of being in the event, meaning seriousness and the tendency to be present in the event, was seen as a way to use the time available effectively. The results may be utilized to develop organizational circumstances, which promote knowledge creation by acknowledging the meaningfulness of interaction. In the future, theoretical sampling will be used for testing and developing the framework further in a Finnish Academy’s Strategic Research Council’s consortium BCDC Energy aiming at developing a cloud computing based market place on renewable energy markets. / Tiivistelmä Tutkimus esittää teoreettisesti yhtenäisen käsitteellistyksen tiedon luomisesta vuorovaikutteisena tapahtumana. Tätä käsitteellistykseen perustuvaa viitekehystä testataan empiirisesti tarkastelemalla tiedon luomisen edellytyksiä ja uuden tiedon luomisen mahdollistavaa vuorovaikutusta moniammatillisessa työyhteisössä. Tiedon luomisen tutkimus on perinteisesti kiinnittynyt ajatukseen tiedosta mielen sisäisenä varantona. Samanaikaisesti tiedon luomisen tutkimuksessa korostetaan vuorovaikutusta, joka on usein käsitetty varsin hermeneuttisena tapahtumana. Tässä tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan näiden kahden lähtökohdan yhdistämisestä muodostuneita ongelmia tietojohtamisen alalla. Tutkimus esittää vaihtoehtoisen, Martin Heideggerin ja Hans-Georg Gadamerin hermeneuttiseen fenomenologiaan perustuvan tavan käsittää ja tutkia tiedon luomista siten, että hermeneuttinen käsitys vuorovaikutuksesta ei ole ristiriidassa tiedon käsitteen kanssa. Tutkimuksen keskeisinä tarkastelun kohteina ovat fenomenologinen ihmiskäsitys ja ajatus vuorovaikutuksesta leikkinä. Tutkimuksessa tarkasteltiin hermeneuttisen fenomenologian suhdetta tiedon luomisen nykytutkimukseen ja kehitettiin hermeneuttiseen fenomenologiaan perustuen viitekehys tiedon luomisen empiiristä tutkimusta varten. Viitekehystä testattiin empiirisesti valtakunnalliseen Lukuinto-ohjelmaan osallistuneessa, kirjaston työntekijöiden ja opettajien muodostamassa, moni-ammatillisessa työyhteisössä. Tutkimuskirjallisuuden lisäksi tutkimuksen aineisto koostui etnografisesta havainnointiaineistosta, työyhteisön kokousten videoinneista, yhteisön jäsenten haastatteluista ja heidän tuottamistaan dokumenteista. Aineisto analysoitiin laadullisella otteella tarkastelemalla sekä työyhteisössä käytyjä keskusteluja että työyhteisön jäsenten kokemuksia tiedon luomisesta Lukuinto-ohjelmassa. Tutkimuksen tulokset osoittavat, että fenomenologinen käsitteellistys olemisen ajallisesta luonteesta ja leikistä avoimena yhdessä olemisen tilana soveltuvat hyvin tietoa luovan vuorovaikutuksen ymmärtämiseen, sillä käsitteellistys huomioi menneiden kokemusten merkityksen uuden tiedon luomisessa, mutta painottaa myös avoimen tulevan ja sen mahdollisuuksien ymmärtämisen merkitystä tavalla, joka edistää uuden luomista. Vuorovaikutustapahtumien tutkiminen mahdollistaa tiedon luomisen ymmärtämisen jaettuna, yhteisenä tapahtumana ja kokemuksena. Joustavien olosuhteiden merkitys tiedon luomisessa korostuu. Leikinomainen vuorovaikutuksessa oleminen, kuten tilanteen vakavasti ottaminen ja läsnäolo, nähtiin tutkimuksessa tapana käyttää aika tehokkaasti. Tutkimuksen tuloksia voidaan käyttää organisaatioissa sellaisten olosuhteiden kehittämiseen, jotka huomioivat vuorovaikutuksen merkityksellisyyden tiedon luomisessa. Jatkossa tässä väitöskirjassa esiteltyä lähestymistapaa ja viitekehystä tullaan edelleen kehittämään ja testaamaan teoreettisen otannan avulla Suomen Akatemian Strategisen Tutkimuksen Neuvoston rahoittamassa BCDC Energia -konsortiossa.

This research aimed to investigate how and why festival volunteers share knowledge in pulsating UK music festival organisations, through an interpretation of volunteers’ lived experiences of knowledge sharing during the event lifecycle. Within the UK music festival sector, competition for leisure spend is high, and successful management of knowledge activities has the ability to improve business, innovation, and competitive advantage. Research across Knowledge Management Studies, Festival Studies, and People and Organisation Studies is dominated by positivist, quantitative research; whereas, this research investigated a fuzzy concept (knowledge) in a socially-constructed world (music festival) and interpreted multiple realities of social actors (volunteers). To do this, a qualitative, phenomenological study was suitable to explore in-depth experiences and unveil meanings attached to them. Purposive sampling using social media resulted in a sample of adult festival volunteers (n=28) being recruited. The methods selected enabled the ability to privilege the participants’ voice and their lived experience; these were diaries (n=11) and in-depth interviews (n=9), or both (n=8). The empirical data generated was interpreted using thematic analysis, using Atlas.ti. The findings of this research illustrate how and why volunteers share knowledge that is attributed to a successful process of volunteering, which enables effective knowledge management and reproduction. Where volunteers’ motivations are satisfied, this leads to bounce-back, episodic volunteering. Knowledge enablers and the removal of barriers create conditions that are conducive for knowledge sharing, which have similar characteristics to conditions for volunteering continuance commitment. Where volunteers do not return, the organisation leaks knowledge. The original contribution of this research is through its use of qualitative phenomenological methods to explore how and why UK music festival volunteers share knowledge.

This study explored how avid users of Second Life (SL) experience and make meaning of informal learning activities in virtual art museums and similar cultural spaces through their avatars. While recent literature has laid the groundwork for studying student engagement and formal learning, the lacuna of research bound by the historical traditions of qualitative research design has done little to ease the skepticism surrounding the value of virtual worlds for learning. Within the context of museological discourse, virtual museum learning experiences have the potential to shift viewing practices as well as how meaning is generated, interpreted, and disseminated. Technical, conceptual, and methodological barriers to studying virtual worlds remain. Another goal of this study was to demonstrate the potential of hermeneutic phenomenology, particularly my conceptualization of virtual hermeneutics, to study virtual worlds. Hermeneutic phenomenology has the potential to make practical understanding of the informal learning process in SL explicit by providing an interpretation of this process. The challenge lies in applying the philosophy behind the methodology to the changing reality of virtual worlds. It is only by studying these experiences in context and situated within virtual spaces that we can expand our understanding of the avatar-mediated informal learning process. Findings from this study show that in-world informal learning experiences can, in fact, be studied on their own terms. Furthermore, rich textural data can not only be extracted from exclusively in-world interaction, but collaborative relationships can also develop with no actual world contact. These experiences and interactions can lead to experiential learning, but also transformational learning where the avatar-identity can affect users' actual world viewing practices and meaning making. It is not so much the technology per se that can affect change, but rather identity exploration, diegesis, and relationship building afforded by the technology. Albeit some learning outcomes were observed, affective outcomes and cognitive strategies, including metacognitive skills, were more frequently described by participants. Due to the complexity of assessing such outcomes and the present obsession with quantitatively measurable outcomes in formal education, it is unlikely that SL can or will be used outside the scope of informal learning in the near future unless formal education undergoes social reform.

This practiced-based thesis examines how a new Visual Communication methodology helps interaction designers to improve their future designs. This is achieved by engaging in creating visual interpretations from a lived experience that they need to design for, to reveal the phenomenological essence of what users have actually experienced, rather than what they say they have. This new Visual Phenomenological Methodology (VPM) places interaction designers into a specific communicational situation, in order to understand the phenomena of users’ lived experience ‘through their eyes.’ Thus immersed, interaction designers montage visual interpretations of what users saw/felt/did in the lived experience. The VPM facilitates interaction designers into designer-interpreters, who can interpret sensory data into a behavioural story of what its like to be the user in a lived experience. This thesis has developed the VPM across three peer reviewed, practice-based projects, using a synthesis of the pragmatic semiotics of Peirce, Hermeneutic Phenomenology, and visual communication techniques. Following the Frascaran view that the design discipline of Visual Communication (graphic design and illustration) is a positive facilitator of behavioural change, the VPM employs this hermeneutic-semiosis synthesis to facilitate interaction designers to develop a deeper and emergent understanding of the hidden motivations behind user behaviour. Through a contextual review into Visual Communication, Interaction Design, Phenomenology and Semiosis, this thesis develops the VPM from a theoretical concept, to a set of designer-friendly method cards that interaction designers can employ during their ideation phase. Throughout its development the VPM and its method cards were workshopped and peer reviewed by interaction designers. This thesis, over the following seven chapters, demonstrates how the VPM successfully provided Visual Communication design with a fresh way to re-influence Interaction Design, as a new contribution to knowledge.

Abstract The aim of this thesis is to present a theoretically consistent conceptualization of knowledge creation as an interactive event and to test this in a working community in a methodologically coherent manner. This thesis examines the key problems in the body of research of knowledge creation in the field of Knowledge Management, which is attached to the idea of knowledge as an asset inside a human mind, but simultaneously promotes a view of interaction, based on hermeneutic understanding. The study proposes an alternative way to conceptualize and examine knowledge creation, based on hermeneutic phenomenology of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Martin Heidegger. The foci are on the conceptions of a human being and interaction as play. On the basis of the research literature, a framework for examining knowledge creation was developed. The framework was empirically tested in a multi-organizational and multi-professional working community of librarians and teachers, participating in The Joy of Reading Program in Finland. Along with the research literature, the triangulated data consist of ethnographic observations and video recordings of the community’s gatherings, its members’ interviews and produced documents. The data were analyzed through a qualitative approach. The results show that the phenomenological conceptions of temporality of a human being and play are suitable for understanding being in the knowledge-creating interaction, as they give means to understand the meaningfulness of past experiences, but promote an open attitude towards future possibilities in a way which promotes knowledge creation. Studying interactive events allows for an understanding of how the phenomenon of knowledge creation can be examined as a collective accomplishment. The importance of flexible circumstances is emphasized to promote interaction. The playful mode of being in the event, meaning seriousness and the tendency to be present in the event, was seen as a way to use the time available effectively. The results may be utilized to develop organizational circumstances, which promote knowledge creation by acknowledging the meaningfulness of interaction. In the future, theoretical sampling will be used for testing and developing the framework further in a Finnish Academy’s Strategic Research Council’s consortium BCDC Energy aiming at developing a cloud computing based market place on renewable energy markets. / Tiivistelmä Tutkimus esittää teoreettisesti yhtenäisen käsitteellistyksen tiedon luomisesta vuorovaikutteisena tapahtumana. Tätä käsitteellistykseen perustuvaa viitekehystä testataan empiirisesti tarkastelemalla tiedon luomisen edellytyksiä ja uuden tiedon luomisen mahdollistavaa vuorovaikutusta moniammatillisessa työyhteisössä. Tiedon luomisen tutkimus on perinteisesti kiinnittynyt ajatukseen tiedosta mielen sisäisenä varantona. Samanaikaisesti tiedon luomisen tutkimuksessa korostetaan vuorovaikutusta, joka on usein käsitetty varsin hermeneuttisena tapahtumana. Tässä tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan näiden kahden lähtökohdan yhdistämisestä muodostuneita ongelmia tietojohtamisen alalla. Tutkimus esittää vaihtoehtoisen, Martin Heideggerin ja Hans-Georg Gadamerin hermeneuttiseen fenomenologiaan perustuvan tavan käsittää ja tutkia tiedon luomista siten, että hermeneuttinen käsitys vuorovaikutuksesta ei ole ristiriidassa tiedon käsitteen kanssa. Tutkimuksen keskeisinä tarkastelun kohteina ovat fenomenologinen ihmiskäsitys ja ajatus vuorovaikutuksesta leikkinä. Tutkimuksessa tarkasteltiin hermeneuttisen fenomenologian suhdetta tiedon luomisen nykytutkimukseen ja kehitettiin hermeneuttiseen fenomenologiaan perustuen viitekehys tiedon luomisen empiiristä tutkimusta varten. Viitekehystä testattiin empiirisesti valtakunnalliseen Lukuinto-ohjelmaan osallistuneessa, kirjaston työntekijöiden ja opettajien muodostamassa, moni-ammatillisessa työyhteisössä. Tutkimuskirjallisuuden lisäksi tutkimuksen aineisto koostui etnografisesta havainnointiaineistosta, työyhteisön kokousten videoinneista, yhteisön jäsenten haastatteluista ja heidän tuottamistaan dokumenteista. Aineisto analysoitiin laadullisella otteella tarkastelemalla sekä työyhteisössä käytyjä keskusteluja että työyhteisön jäsenten kokemuksia tiedon luomisesta Lukuinto-ohjelmassa. Tutkimuksen tulokset osoittavat, että fenomenologinen käsitteellistys olemisen ajallisesta luonteesta ja leikistä avoimena yhdessä olemisen tilana soveltuvat hyvin tietoa luovan vuorovaikutuksen ymmärtämiseen, sillä käsitteellistys huomioi menneiden kokemusten merkityksen uuden tiedon luomisessa, mutta painottaa myös avoimen tulevan ja sen mahdollisuuksien ymmärtämisen merkitystä tavalla, joka edistää uuden luomista. Vuorovaikutustapahtumien tutkiminen mahdollistaa tiedon luomisen ymmärtämisen jaettuna, yhteisenä tapahtumana ja kokemuksena. Joustavien olosuhteiden merkitys tiedon luomisessa korostuu. Leikinomainen vuorovaikutuksessa oleminen, kuten tilanteen vakavasti ottaminen ja läsnäolo, nähtiin tutkimuksessa tapana käyttää aika tehokkaasti. Tutkimuksen tuloksia voidaan käyttää organisaatioissa sellaisten olosuhteiden kehittämiseen, jotka huomioivat vuorovaikutuksen merkityksellisyyden tiedon luomisessa. Jatkossa tässä väitöskirjassa esiteltyä lähestymistapaa ja viitekehystä tullaan edelleen kehittämään ja testaamaan teoreettisen otannan avulla Suomen Akatemian Strategisen Tutkimuksen Neuvoston rahoittamassa BCDC Energia -konsortiossa.

Knowledge of genetic predisposition to future illness and disability creates uncertainties that shape and influence life decisions about reproduction, career, health behavior, and the need for care. Current research has not yet identified the meaning of the experience of feeling uncertain among intimate partners of persons who have received genetic information pertaining to future health status. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the meaning of uncertainty as a lived experienced among intimate partners of persons who have tested positive for a mutation in the gene causing Huntington disease (HD) but have not yet been clinically diagnosed with HD. The specific aims were to create a rich, vivid description of uncertainty as experienced by this population and to present these findings within an existential phenomenological perspective. Using van Manen's hermeneutic-phenomenological methodology, experiential descriptions from 10 intimate partners of persons in the prodromal phase of HD were obtained. Thematic aspects of the lived experience of uncertainty were uncovered and isolated; essential themes were determined; and linguistic transformations were composed. The analysis revealed four essential themes, indicating that the meaning of the lived experience of uncertainty was 1) an intangible reality characterized by 2) anticipating with ebbing and flowing disquietude while feeling 3) a weighty pull to dwell upon, towards inner turmoil and 4) a subdued presence with freeing possibilities. The implications of these findings are that nurses need to ensure adequate opportunity is created in which the meaning of the lived experience of uncertainty can be ascertained and explored among persons who are on the cusp of the inevitable but not yet graspable. Continued research is needed to further address the implications of being situated in this potentially fracturing phase of the disease trajectory and to determine appropriate interventions.

The New Zealand education system has undergone some two decades of substantial reform. There can be little doubt that this has brought significant change to the nature of what is expected of people occupying positions of leadership in schools and educational institutions (Ball, 2007; Bottery, 2004; Codd, 2005). Against this contextual backdrop, and in the researcher’s experience as a teacher and former holder of a position of leadership, there is an observable phenomenon of educational leaders stepping aside from position and yet continuing to work as teachers within the same workplace. Despite claims of a leadership ‘crisis’, and international acknowledgement of concern over the retention of educational leaders (Brooking, 2007; Brundrett & Rhodes, 2006; Fullan, 2005), the human experience of this phenomenon appears unrepresented in current research literature. The present study has sought to capture this experience through addressing the central research question “What is the lived experience of the voluntary relinquishing of the position of leader, yet choosing to remain within the same educational workplace?” In order to gather rich qualitative data, a descriptive multiple case study design was employed. In-depth unstructured interviews were carried out with eight educational leaders who had relinquished position within the contexts of New Zealand State Secondary Schools and Private Training Establishments, and chosen to continue working in these same contexts. The subsequent analysis drew on the tradition of hermeneutic interpretation (van Manen, 1990) to arrive at interpretations of the uniqueness of individual experiences, and offer understandings of the shared meanings of the experience in the form of essential themes. The key findings which emerged in this study were those of a sense of the ‘a-lone-ness’ of leadership, the ‘ready-suddenness’ of the decision to step aside, a seeking of ‘balance’ in the relinquishing of position, a powerful sense of ‘re-turning’ to the call of teaching, and varying degrees of ‘ease’ and ‘dis-ease’ in the experience of ‘letting go and holding on’ following positional relinquishment. These findings serve to extend aspects of those of earlier leadership and role exit studies, and offer previously undocumented understandings. Thus, a major contribution of this study is in the bringing-to-voice of the stories of those who step aside from leadership position yet remain in the workplace, and in the opening of avenues for further research.

The topic of my research is the lived experiences of eight psychotherapists and counsellors who consciously work with unusual phenomena as it arises in the therapeutic encounter. Unusual phenomena in this thesis refers to felt experiences which are considered to be beyond the everyday in the Cartesian paradigm and are often referred to as spiritual and/or mystical phenomena. Exploring these phenomena brings to light the potentialities in the vastness of consciousness which is considered to be an integral aspect of human existence in the thesis. I chose Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenological methodology for the research because it gives credence to the many and varied possibilities and potentialities both in particular lived experiences and in human existence as a whole. Van Manen’s lived existential provides the framework in which the participants’ experiences are explored. What emerged from the research is that unusual phenomena are not unusual for the participants. Although such phenomena are less visible and therefore less familiar in the everyday world, they are recognizable through their consistent presentation. This includes the participants having a powerful sense of ‘knowing’ which is all-encompassing and is beyond familiar landmarks such as the linear models of time and space. The participants bring their ‘knowing’ into the everyday world through embodiment and through their acknowledgment of the interconnectedness of existence. The expression of interconnectedness is experienced by the participants as lovingness, from which the ability for immediate healing in their therapeutic work becomes apparent. The participants’ accounts show a capacity for accessing the subtleties of human existence which emerge in the phenomenological process as the forgotten feminine of consciousness. The feminine of consciousness is a term used to describe a fundamental state of ‘being’ in contrast to the everyday masculine principle of ‘doing’. The research has implications for psychotherapy and counselling as it illuminates the need for a holistic approach which acknowledges the multidimensionality of human existence.