Imagine you are serving on the board of a for-profit educational services company. Staff communicate to the board their concerns about the transition from foster care to independence for young adults who have reached the age of 18. These individuals are no longer eligible to be in the foster care system. Of particular concern is their self-esteem through this transition. There is extensive quantitative research in the scholarly literature regarding the function of self-esteem in such a transition, but a dearth of qualitative research on the topic. You want to assist staff in providing adequate support for this client population by commissioning an internal qualitative study to better understand the phenomenon and improve their transitions. Develop a problem statement for this query using a phenomenological design. What would be the purpose of the study? What research questions would you ask? Justify each response in reference to the nature of phenomenological inquiry design.
Having identified and developed a phenomenological inquiry problem statement, purpose statement, and research questions regarding the transition to independence of emancipated foster care youth and their self-esteem, what do you perceive are the epistemological and methodological strengths of this design for exploring the phenomenon of the study and answering the research questions? What are the epistemological and methodological limitations of the design for the same purpose?
