Using stories and symbols as evidence

How to collect and analyse data

Learning Together

Data collection methods

• Stories

• Observation

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’?

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)

The Narrative Inquiry Research Process

• Stresses the ‘journey’ (of the research) over the ‘destination’

• Less likely to have specific outcomes

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

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)”.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Types of observationMore 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

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)

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)

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

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

Student K: If you have a look later it would look really different to what I am [now] . . . Iput 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.