Enriching IPA with elements of Mindfulness: A Novel Framework for Pre-Interview Preparation

This paper introduces an innovative pre-interview preparation framework designed to deepen research into women’s lived experiences of mid-career transitions from corporate employment to entrepreneurship. By weaving mindfulness practices and visual methods into Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), the framework not only strengthens the depth and quality of participant engagement but also highlights the untapped potential of preparatory techniques in advancing qualitative research.

Phenomenological studies increasingly integrate mindfulness and visual methods, such as meditation and photovoice, to explore lived experiences. Yet, most approaches often overlook the role of structured mental and emotional preparatory techniques in eliciting deeper, tacit or emotionally layered insights. Researchers have previously employed mindfulness to deepen self-awareness and enhance attunement to interviewees' lived experiences, rather than to prepare participants before interviews.

The preparatory framework includes two stages. First, participants engage in a live guided meditation that induces a contemplative state, promoting focus and emotional openness. Second, to facilitate self-awareness and aid memory retrieval, participants employ visual methods through the construction of a vision board, comprising a curated photo collage of symbolic imagery. The vision board functions as supplementary material and is subsequently utilised as a prompt during the semi-structured interview, conducted in alignment with the principles of IPA.

By stimulating autobiographical memory and embodied reflection, this preparatory phase supports participants who may struggle to articulate complex or emotionally charged experiences. The proposed multimodal framework can complement verbal data, foster participant comfort and yield more nuanced phenomenological material. By synthesising embodied, visual and verbal methods, this design addresses calls for methodological innovation in organisational, career and entrepreneurship research.

The paper concludes by outlining theoretical contributions that extend IPA through multimodal preparatory practices. Practically, it offers researchers and practitioners directions for adapting this framework to other interpretive and participatory designs, particularly in contexts where symbolic and emotional dimensions are central.