Research Narrative Designs

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Chapter 16

• Research Narrative Designs
• Dr. William M. Bauer

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Key Ideas

• Brief history of narrative research
• Questions for determining narrative designs
• Key characteristics of narrative designs
• Strengths and weaknesses of narrative designs
• Steps in conducting narrative research
• Criteria for evaluating narrative research

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A Brief History of Narrative Research in Education

• 1990 Clandinin and Connelly first overview of
  narrative research in education
• Trends influencing the development of narrative
  research
• increased emphasis on teacher reflection
• emphasis placed on teacher knowledge
• attempt to bring teachers voices to the
  forefront

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Questions for Determining Narrative Designs

• Who writes or records the story?
• How much of a life is recorded or presented?
• Who provides the story?
• Is a theoretical lens being used?
• When can narrative forms be combined?

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Key Characteristics of Narrative Designs

• Focuses on individual experiences
• Reports a chronology of the experiences
• use a time sequence of events
• chronology sets narrative apart
• Collects the individual stories told to the
  researcher or gathered through field texts
• autobiographies
• interviews
• journals

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Key Characteristics of Narrative Designs

• Restories the individual stories
• researcher gathers stories and analyzes them for
  elements of the story
• researcher rewrites the story to place it in a
  chronological sequence
• restorying provides a causal link among ideas
• information would include interaction,
  continuity, and situation

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Key Characteristics of Narrative Designs

• Coding for themes
• themes provide the complexity of the story
• themes add depth to the insight about
  understanding an individuals experiences
• themes can be incorporated into the passage
  retelling the individuals experience or as a
  separate section of the study

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Key Characteristics of Narrative Designs

• Describes the context or setting for the
  individual stories
• includes the people involved in the story
• includes the physical setting
• setting may be described before events or
  actions, or can be woven throughout the study
• collaborates throughout the process of research
  with the individuals whose stories are being
  reported

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Key Characteristics of Narrative Designs

• collaborates throughout the process of research
  with the individuals whose stories are being
  reported
• participants are actively involved in the inquiry
  as it unfolds
• relationships between research and participant
  are negotiated to minimize the potential gap
  between narrative told and narrative reported

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Strengths and Weaknesses of Narrative Designs

• Strengths
• Collaboration
• Gives voice to educators
• Helps others understand topics
• Captures everyday familiar data

• Weaknesses
• Participants may fake the data
• Telling horrific experiences
• Ownership of the story

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Steps in Conducting Narrative Research

• Identify a phenomenon to explore that addresses
  an educational problem
• Purposefully select an individual to learn about
  the phenomenon
• Collect the story from the individual
• Restory or retell the individuals story

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Steps in Conducting Narrative Research

• Collaborate with the participant storyteller
• Write a story about the participants experiences
• Validate the accuracy of the report

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Criteria for Evaluating Narrative Research

• Does the researcher focus on individual
  experiences?
• Is there a focus on a single individual or a few
  individuals?
• Did the researcher collect the story of an
  individuals experience?
• Was there a restorying by the researcher of the
  participants story?

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Criteria for Evaluating Narrative Research

• In the restorying, was the participants voice as
  well as the researchers voice heard?
• Did the researcher identify themes that emerged
  from the story?
• Did the story include information about place or
  setting of the individual?

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Criteria for Evaluating Narrative Research

• Did the story have a temporal, chronological
  sequence including the past, present and future?
• Is there evidence that the researcher
  collaborated with the participant?
• Does the story adequately address the purpose and
  questions of the researcher?

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Applying What you Have Learned Narrative Designs

• Review the article and look for the following
• The research problem and use of quantitative
  research
• Use of the literature
• The purpose statement and research hypothesis
• Types and procedures of data collection
• Types and procedures of data analysis and
  interpretation
• The overall report structure