Power Point slides by Ronald J. Shope in collaboration with John W.

Creswell
Chapter 16
Narrative Research Designs
Educational Research 2e: Creswell
Key Ideas
Narrative research and when to use it
Types of narrative designs
Key characteristics of narrative designs
Potential issues in gathering data
Steps in conducting a narrative study
Evaluating narrative research
Educational Research 2e: Creswell

What is narrative research?
In narrative research, researchers
describe the lives of individuals, collect
and tell stories about peoples lives, and
write narratives of individual experiences.
As a distinct form of qualitative research, a
narrative typically focuses on studying a
single person, gathering data through the
collection of stories, reporting individual
experiences, and discussing the meaning
of those experiences for the individual.
Educational Research 2e: Creswell
How do you use narrative
designs?
When individuals are willing to tell their
stories
Want to report personal experiences in a
particular setting
Want a close bond with participants
When participants want to process their
stories
When you have a chronology of events
When you want to write in a literary way
and develop the micro picture
Educational Research 2e: Creswell
How did narrative research
develop?
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
Educational Research 2e: Creswell
Types of narrative designs:
Questions to ask
Who writes or records the story?( e.g.,
Biography; Autobiography)
How much of a life is recorded or presented?
(e.g., Life History; Personal Experience Story)
Who provides the story?
Is a theoretical lens being used? (Ideology that
provides structure)
When can narrative forms be combined? (e.g.,
Biography and Personal Account)
Educational Research 2e: Creswell
Key characteristics of
narrative designs
Individual experiences
Chronology of the experiences
Collecting individual stories
Restorying
Coding for themes
Context or setting
Collaboration with participants

Educational Research 2e: Creswell
Key characteristics:
Individual experiences
Single individual
Interested in exploring the experiences
of that individual

Educational Research 2e: Creswell
Key characteristics:
Chronology of experiences
Researcher analyzes and writes about
an individual life using a time sequence
or chronology of events
Researcher orders these events in a
way that makes sense to a reader
Educational Research 2e: Creswell
Key characteristics
Collecting individual stories
A story in narrative research is a first-person
oral telling or retelling of an individual
Stories have a beginning, middle, and end
Involve a predicament, conflict, or struggle; a
protagonist or character; and a sequence with
implied causality (a plot) during which the
predicament is resolved in some fashion
Like a novel, stories have time, place, plot,
and scene
Varied sources of data comprise the data
base
Educational Research 2e: Creswell
Key characteristics:
Restorying
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
Educational Research 2e: Creswell
The Process of Restorying
Transcription: researcher conducts the interview
and transcribes the conversation from an
audiotape
Retranscription: identifying the key elements of
the story. Codes used by the researcher to
identify setting, characters actions, problem and
resolution in the transcript
Restorying: organizing the key codes into a
sequence
Educational Research 2e: Creswell
Key characteristics: 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
Educational Research 2e: Creswell
Key characteristics: Context
or setting
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

Educational Research 2e: Creswell
Key characteristics:
Collaboration with participants
Collaboration: inquirer actively involves
the participant in the inquiry as it unfolds
Strategies
Negotiating relationships
Involving participants in the process of
research
Negotiating transitions in the research
process
Educational Research 2e: Creswell
Potential issues in narrative
research
Story authentic? (Faking the data
possible)
Is the story real? (Participants may not
be able to tell the real story)
Who owns the story? (Does the
researcher have permission to share it?)
Is participants voice lost?
Does the researcher gain at the expense
of the participant?
Educational Research 2e: Creswell
Steps in narrative research
Identify a phenomenon
that addresses
an educational problem
Purposefully select an
individual to learn
about the phenomenon
Write a story about the
participants personal
and social experiences
Validate the accuracy of
the report
Collaborate with
participant storyteller in
all phases of research
Restory or retell
The individuals
story
Collect stories from
the individual that
Reflect personal experience
Have them
Tell story

Collect other
Field texts

Build in past,
Present, future
Build in place
or setting
Describe their
story
Analyze story
for
themes
Educational Research 2e: Creswell
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?
Educational Research 2e: Creswell
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?
Educational Research 2e: Creswell
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?