This document discusses narrative inquiry as a qualitative research method. It focuses on using stories and symbols to collect and analyze data. Narrative inquiry interprets people's stories and how they make meaning of the world. It views narratives as social constructs influenced by context rather than just facts. The research process in narrative inquiry is flexible and allows themes to emerge through stories rather than relying on pre-determined questions. Key methods include gathering stories through interviews and observations and analyzing them thematically while keeping the full story intact.

1. Using stories and symbols as
evidence
How to collect and analyse data
Learning Together

2. Data collection methods
• Stories
• Observation

3. What is Narrative Inquiry?
• The methodological use of story
• Focuses on the ways in which people make and use
stories to interpret the world
• Narratives are not „simply‟ a set of facts – social
products produced by people within the context of
social, historical and cultural locations
• Interpretive devices through which people represent
themselves
• Rather than „what happened‟ – „what is the
significance of this event‟?

4. The Narrative Inquiry
Research Process
• Research process „unfolds‟ – common not to have
very specific research questions at the outset
• Discrete activities of research – theoretical
frameworks, data collection and analysis, literature
review – often woven together
• Research process itself is as important as the
research – and often becomes a story
• Often begins with the “researcher‟s autobiographically
oriented narrative associated with the research puzzle”
(Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; 40)

5. The Narrative Inquiry
Research Process
• Stresses the „journey‟ (of the research)
over the „destination‟
• Less likely to have specific outcomes

6. What are the Research
Methods/Strategies
• Gathering of stories in any form – visual,
written, oral
• Narrative interviewing
• “Actions, doings and happenings” –
unanticipated narratives
• Researcher‟s autobiographical
experiences

7. Narrative Interviewing
“When the interview is viewed as a
conversation – a discourse between
speakers – rules of everyday conversation
apply: turn taking; relevancy; and entrance
and exit talk to transition into, and return
from a story world (Riessman, 2004; 709)”.

8. Narrative Interviewing
• Invites stories that are meaningful for the narrator –
rather than assume s/he has answers to questions
researcher might pose
• A “discursive accomplishment” (Riessman, 2004; 709)
– two active participants produce meaning together
• Story will differ – depending on teller and listener
• Audience has a part to play
• The „Western‟ structure of a story

9. Narrative Inquiry and
Educational Research
• Concern with representation and voice – focus is on
stories of teachers and learners – meanings that they
give to their experiences
• Seeks to „give voice‟ to minorities – „others‟ whose
voices are not always heard
• Need for greater diversity of voices to avoid
inappropriate dominance of „majority‟ voices
• Particularly suited to practitioner research

10. Thematic Narrative Analysis
• Emphasis is on „what‟ is said
• Minimal focus on „how‟ it is said
• Strives to keep the „story‟ intact for interpretive purposes –
determining a story‟s boundaries difficult and highly interpretive
• Generic explanations rejected – time and place of narration
attended to
• Theorises from a single „case‟ – rather than the themes across
(as in much grounded theory) - although…
• Data may be gathered together to produce an „emplotted‟
narrative

11. Data Analysis -
Dialogic/Performance Analysis
• Makes selective use of thematic and structural analysis and adds
other dimensions
• Thematic analysis interrogates „what‟; structural analysis
interrogates „how‟; dialogic/performance analysis asks „who‟,
„when‟ and „why‟?
• Invites readers to engage with the text
• „Risks‟ when we open our work to „different‟ readings – are all
meanings plausible?
• Interpretation must be linked to features in the text, including how
it is organised
• Researcher can bring information from the interview context –
other readers may not have access to this

12. Data Analysis -
Dialogic/Performance Analysis
• Interrogates how talk is interactively („dialogically‟) produced and
„performed‟ as narrative
• „Performative‟ – identities situated and accomplished with an audience
in mind
• Requires close reading of contexts, including the influence of
researcher, setting and social circumstances on the production and
interpretation of narrative
• The response of the listener and ultimately the reader/audience is
implicated in the art of storytelling
• Intersubjectivity and reflexivity come to the fore – dialogue between
researcher and researched, text and reader, knower and known
• Research report becomes a story with readers the audience

13. Aim of observation
• Observation = “to watch, to attend to…” (Oxford
English Dictionary)
• generally natural behaviour
• Aim: collection of information about the world with
the intention of guiding behaviour (indirectly)
through the production of public knowledge which
can be used by others
• is planned and systematic
• is recorded and interpreted systematically
• is subject to validity checks to check accuracy

14. Types of observation
More structured Less structured
• Aim = to collect
accurate quantitative
data – (patterns)
• Pre-structured
categories (for
analysis)
• observation
schedule
• Aim = to get detailed
qualitative description of
human behavior that
illuminate social
meanings & shared
culture, to develop a
theory (eg grounded
theory)
• Minimum pre-structuring
• Observer is open-
minded

15. Different Contexts
The context is usually chosen by the researcher, but
may also be varied by the researcher
• How structured? – Does activity follow
some sequence that can be
anticipated?
• How naturalistic? – How is the context
being influenced by the researcher? ….
(CF. role of the researcher)

16. What can be observed?
• Non-verbal behaviour & actions
• Use of space
• What is said
• Language content and structure
• Extra-verbal data; who is speaking, how often, who
interrupts whom, who speaks quietly/loudly (Deem et al
1995)
• Strategies & processes (eg pedagogies, assessment)

17. How to record information
• Fieldnotes
• Audio-videorecording
• Go through notes and tapes straight after to check and
put in order
• Try to keep a field diary
• Evernote and images via a phone
• Audio & video-recording allows:
• More details + More accuracy
• Permanent record - More complex and careful analysis

18. Image and Symbol as
mediators of meaning
The wedge tailed eagle
symbolises strategic
awareness:
(a) able to spiral high in the sky
to look for prey;
(b) patient, strategic and smart;
(c) stealthy;
(d) confident and self-aware;
(e) able to use aerodynamics;
(f) able to understand invisible
things; and
(g) able to see the big picture.

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EnquiryBlogger

22. Student K: If you have a look later it would
look really different to what I am [now] . . . I
put changing and learning in but you can‟t
see the difference in me now. The snake
like sheds its skin to grow and that like
means like when I grow up I‟ll collect more,
get more detail and that into it and the
platypus is Dad [who] teaches me about
pocket watches.
Researcher: And what would you think the
differences in you are now?
Student K: Like enjoying myself, looking
more into stuff and that.
Researcher: What have been the most
important things that you think have helped
you change a bit like that? Is it that you‟ve
found something that you‟re really
interested in and want to explore or . . . ?
Student K: Yeah, yes it is. Yeah, it‟s like
looking for treasure.