NARRATIVE RESEARCH

Nilsa E. Valle Padilla

INDR 8355
University of the Incarnate Word

NARRATIVE RESEARCH
Narrative research involves
researching with materials that have
been produced by participants as
deliberately stories that they want to
tell you. It also involves collecting
those stories by actually asking
people to tell the stories( Squire,
p.1, 2013)

NARRATIVE RESEARCH
Narrative research aims to explore and conceptualize human story
experiences as it is represented in textual form (Josselson , 2010)

Aiming for an in-depth exploration of the meanings people assign to

their experiences. Narrative researchers work with small samples of
participants to obtain rich and free-ranging discourse(Josselson,
2010)

Narrative research orients itself toward understanding human

complexity, especially in those cases where there are many variables
that contribute to human life cannot be controlled( Josselson , 2010)
Aims to take into accountand interpretively account for the
multiple perspectives of both the researched and researcher
(Josselson, 2010)

NARRATIVE RESEARCH
People use narrative as a form of constructing their views of
the world as time itself is constructed narratively (Josselson,
2010)

Narrative researchers invite participants to describe in detail

tell the story ofeither a particular event or a significant
aspect or time of life (Josselson, 2010)
The narration of experience involves the subjectivity of the
actor(conflicts, goals, opinions, emotions, worldviews, and
morals, all of which are open to the gaze of the researcher
(Josselson, 2010)
Narrative research opens possibilities for social change by
giving voice to marginalized groups(Josselson, 2010)

NARRATIVES RESEARCH

(Josselson, 2010)

NARRATIVE RESEARCH
In interview-based designs (participants who fit into the
subgroup of interest are invited to be interviewed at
length (generally 14 hours) (Josselson , 2010)
Interviews are recorded and then transcribed (Josselson,
2010)
Narrative researcher meticulously guides the participant
to the question of interest in the research( they
encourage the participant to continue the narration or to
clarify what seems confusing to the researcher (Josselson,
2010)
Focus on the individual, developmental, and social
processes and reflects on how their experiences are
constructed both internally and externally (Josselson,
2010)

NARRATIVE RESEARCH
The purpose of narrative research is to produce a
deep understanding of dynamic process (Josselson,
2010)
Narrative researchers avoid having a predetermined
theory about the person that they interview or the
life-story is expected to support (Josselson, 2010)

NARRATIVE RESEARCH
Any life experiences that people can narrate or represent
become fertile ground for narrative research questions
(Josselson, 2010)

Narrative research is generally concerned with individuals'

experience, but it also consider narratives that are particular
collectives (societies, groups, or organizations (Josselson, 2010)

Narrative researchers are narrators.Their goal is to remain

transparent and mindful as they make their work and when
they are writing about their own interactions with the
participants data, and their social location and personal
predilections(Josselson, 2010)

NARRATIVE RESEARCH
Tends to the myriad versions of self, reality, and experience that the
storyteller produces through the telling (Josselson , 2010)
Narrative Research use field texts commonly called data
Conversations

Interviews

Participant observations

Oral stories

Artifacts (part of the field texts include artwork, photographs,

memory box items, documents, plans, policies, annals, and
chronologies (Clandinin & Caine,2008)

Personal documents journals, diaries, memoirs, or films are the

base for the
analysis.(Any storied materials available or can be
produce from the kinds of people who might have personal
knowledge and experiences to bring to bear on the research
question(Josselson, 2010).

NARRATIVE RESEARCH
Field texts are composed over multiple interactions
with participants
Through participants' reflections on and of earlier
life experiences.
Field texts are embedded within research
relationships and reflect multiple nested stories.
Field texts are shaped into interim research texts,
which are shared and negotiated with participants
prior to being composed into final research texts.
Research texts are composed from field texts and
interim research texts (Clandinin & Caine, 2008).

Theoretical divisions in
narrative research
Conversations between people or email
exchanges, does not fit into either of these two
initial fields of event-and experience-oriented
narrative research
Recounting of particular past events. Events that
happened to the narrator, the person telling the story
Narrative research encompasses varying media. Not
just speech, also writing scraps of letters, laundry
lists, diaries
and visual material
( Squire, Andrews & Tambouku, 2008)

NARRATIVE RESEARCH

Narrative has acquired an increasingly high profile in social research

(Squire, Andrews & Tamboukou,2008)

Unlike other qualitative research offers no overall rules about suitable

materials or modes of investigation, or the best level at which to study
stories (Squire, Andrews & Tambouku, 2008)
It aim for objectivity and the researcher participant involvement. Do
not look for stories in recorded everyday speech, interviews, diaries,
television programmed or newspaper articles (Squire, Andrews &
Tambouku, 2008)

NARRATIVE RESEARCH

Questions?

References
Clandinin,D. J. & Caine,V.(2008). Narrative Inquiry. In Givens, L.,(Eds.),The
Sage Encyclopedia of
Qualitative Research Methods (pp. 542-545). Thousand Oaks: SAGE
publications.
Josselson, R.(2010)."Narrative Research. In Salkind, N.,(Eds.),Encyclopedia
of Research Design (pp.
869-875).Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.
Squire, C. (2013). Narrative Research: An interview with Corrine
Squire[Video file]. Retrieved from
http://srmo.sagepub.com.uiwtx.idem.oclc.org/view/narrative-research-co...

Squire, C., Andrews, M., & Tamboukou, M.(2008). "Introduction: What is

narrative research?. In
Squire, Andrews & Tamboukou (Eds.), Doing Narrative Research (pp.122). London: SAGE