Heuristic Inquiry

Heuristic inquiry is a form of phenomenological inquiry that brings to the fore the personal experience and insights of the researcher. With regard to some phenomenon of interest, the inquirer asks, “What is my experience of this phenomenon and the essential experience of others who also experience this phenomenon intensely?” (Patton, 2002).

Humanist psychologist Clark Moustakas (1990) named heuristic inquiry when he was searching for a word that would encompass the processes he believed to be essential in investigating human experience. “Heuristic” comes from the Greek word heuriskein, meaning “to discover” or “to find.” It connotes a process of internal search through which one discovers the nature and meaning of experience and develops methods and procedures for further investigation and analysis. “The self of the researcher is present throughout the process and, while understanding the phenomenon with increasing depth, the researcher also experiences growing self-awareness and self-knowledge. Heuristic processes incorporate creative self-processes and self-discoveries” (Moustakas, 1990, p. 9).

[Page 460]There are two focusing elements of heuristic inquiry within the larger framework of phenomenology: (a) The researcher must have personal experience with and intense interest in the phenomenon under study, and (b) others (coresearchers) who share an intensity of experience with the phenomenon participate in the inquiry. Douglass and Moustakas (1985) have emphasized that “heuristics is concerned with meanings, not measurements; with essence, not appearance; with quality, not quantity; with experience, not behavior” (p. 42).

The particular contribution of heuristic inquiry is the extent to which it legitimizes and places at the fore the personal experiences, reflections, and insights of the researcher. The researcher comes to understand the essence of the phenomenon through shared reflection and inquiry with coresearchers as they also intensively experience and reflect on the phenomenon in question. A sense of connectedness develops between researcher and research participants in their mutual efforts to elucidate the nature, meaning, and essence of a significant human experience.

The rigor of heuristic inquiry comes from systematic observation of and dialogues with self and others, as well as depth interviewing of coresearchers.

Heuristic inquiry is derived from but different from PHENOMENOLOGY in four major ways:

• 1.
  Heuristics emphasizes connectedness and relationship, whereas phenomenology encourages more detachment in analyzing experience.
• 2.
  Heuristics seeks essential meanings through portrayal of personal significance, whereas phenomenology emphasizes definitive descriptions of the structures of experience.
• 3.
  Heuristics includes the researcher's intuition and tacit understandings, whereas phenomenology distills the structures of experience.
• 4.
  “In heuristics the research participants remain visible. … Phenomenology ends with the essence of experience; heuristics retains the essence of the person in experience” (Douglass & Moustakas, 1985, p. 43).

Systematic steps in the heuristic inquiry process lead to the exposition of experiential essence through immersion, incubation, illumination, explication, and creative synthesis (Moustakas, 1990).