Journal of Nursing & Care

Understanding the Differences between Husserl’s (Descriptive) and Heidegger’s (Interpretive) Phenomenological Research

Abstract

Gina M Reiners

Phenomenology is one of several qualitative research traditions. Undergraduate and graduate nursing students have sought to understand the differences between Husserl’s descriptive and Heidegger’s interpretive phenomenology. This article is a basic resource for nursing students that describes and interprets the differences between the two philosophical phenomenological schools of thought. The origin of phenomenology is presented. A descriptive and an interpretive article from two peer reviewed nursing journals are compared and contrasted based on their purpose, data collection and data analysis. The selected articles were chosen based on their topic of relevance related to nursing students in educational settings.