Laboratory for Phenomenological Research

08/11/2026

Employing Heidegger and Sartre, the lab’s new paper demonstrates how doctoral candidates can become “commodified agents”, whose agency can be reorganized around serving their supervisors. The article offers a clear demonstration of what our original method – Phenomenologically Directed Qualitative Research – can reveal.

Published today in The Journal of Higher Education – Impact Factor 2.6, acceptance rate ~8%.
For those without access:
https://storage.googleapis.com/gator-users/user-651041/documents/41d2ab3fb0ab4b4e827a32a43ecb9c20/Lab%20agency.pdf

Higher education research on STEM lab supervision has often addressed the dynamics of doctoral agency through three parallel strands of scholarship: the restriction of research judgment, the redefi...

07/27/2026

A new empirical study builds its central theoretical framework on Lab Head Thomas Byrne's article, “The Phenomenology of ChatGPT”. The authors use Byrne’s interpretation of Husserl to formulate their research questions and analytical framework for examining approximately 800 AI tutor conversations. Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772503026000599

06/11/2026

Our new article demonstrates that graduate departments can make student complaints disappear even before any formal process begins. They do this by making students so marginal that their concerns no longer sound like real problems. --- This is qualitative phenomenology at full force: front-loaded concepts for analyzing lived worlds, not fake Husserlian rituals.
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/QSDMMFWRBWRFJXJCMADY/full?target=10.1080/13562517.2026.2686937
For those without publisher access: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/406948158_Recognition_in_STEM_doctoral_education_a_phenomenology_of_student_complaints_institutional_response_and_lived_conditions

Existing research, including scholarship influenced by Bourdieu, has shown that recognition in doctoral education is mediated by symbolic power and institutional habitus. This paper advances that d...

05/27/2026

In this new open access FQS article, Lab Head Thomas Byrne engages with Max van Manen - one of the most influential figures in phenomenological qualitative research. Byrne argues that van Manen misrepresents some of the most basic tenets of Husserl’s philosophy. The article offers a broader critique of how phenomenology is taught, repeated, and authorized in qualitative research.

05/14/2026

The lab’s new article demonstrates how Sartre’s account of the look, rather than Foucault’s medical gaze, can guide our understanding of patient interactions with doctors. The article is the first published study to employ our own new method, Phenomenologically Directed Qualitative Research (PDQR).
If you need access, feel free to message Thomas Byrne or email him at [email protected]

Contemporary health research often examines patient objectification, patient self-objectification, and good patient performance as separate concerns. Treating t...

05/07/2026

We held a lovely lab dinner to celebrate our publications and to end the academic year!

05/01/2026

We are excited to share that Karin Dahlberg and Helena Dahlberg have published a direct response to Dr. Thomas Byrne's recent article on phenomenology, philosophy, and qualitative research.
This is a significant moment for our lab’s work. Dahlberg and Dahlberg are among the most influential scholars in phenomenological qualitative research, especially through their development of Reflective Lifeworld Research. Their response means that Dr. Byrne’s critique has become part of a major scholarly conversation about how phenomenological philosophy should inform empirical research.

As long as there has been phenomenological empirical research, the relationship to the philosophical foundation has been a matter of dispute. One such example w...

04/27/2026

Lab Head Thomas Byrne's new article out open access. The article examines how Husserl’s reductions are often operationalized within qualitative research. The paper contributes to the lab’s broader work on developing clearer and more philosophically precise approaches to phenomenologically informed empirical inquiry.

The phenomenological and eidetic reductions have long been misunderstood and misused in qualitative research, hindering cumulative and cooperative progress. To ...