Hermeneutic phenomenological research method simplified - Narayan Prasad Kafle This write-up aims to first clarify the notion of phenomenology by offering sayings of different experts of this genre. Thereafter, it attempts to briefly trace its genesis and classify this broad idea in three different schools viz. transcendental, hermeneutic and existential. After discussing very precisely on each of these schools, it focuses on the premises of hermeneutic phenomenology as a method for doing research. The purpose of this essay is to collect and exhibit a crude paradigmatic clue of doing a hermeneutic phenomenological research. During the course, it emphasizes on the metaphysical stance, methodological grounds, quality concerns and ethical issues that contribute to its paradigmatic assumptions. Defining phenomenology Phenomenology is an umbrella term encompassing both a philosophical movement and a range of research approaches. The phenomenological movement was initiated by Husserl (1859-1838) as a radically new way of doing philosophy. Later theorists, such as Heidegger (1889-1976), have recast the phenomenological project, moving away from a philosophical discipline which focuses on consciousness and essences of phenomena towards elaborating existential and hermeneutic (interpretive) dimensions (Finlay, 2009). Finlay (2009) further states that applied to research, phenomenology is the study of phenomena: their nature and meanings. The focus is on the way things appear to us through experience or in our consciousness where the ______________________________ © 2011 Kathmandu University, Nepal 181 Bodhi: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 5, 2011, ISSN: 2091-0479 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------