Narrative Inquiry: Qualitative Research Methodology

Qualitative research generally uses narratives, verbal acts that include someone telling another person that an event occurred (Smith, 1981), for descriptive purposes to categorize and form taxonomies (classifications of themes based on similarities) to understand differences and similarities among and between stories. Narrative inquiry

Distinguishing narrative inquiry from other forms of discourse, Catherine Riessman and Jane Speedy (2007) propose that narrative inquiry offers a focus on sequence (organization of events) and consequence (how and why events occurred). As they explain, “Events are selected, organized, connected and evaluated as meaningful for a particular audience. Analysis in narrative studies interrogates language—how and why events are storied, not simply the content to which language refers” (p. 430). So narrative inquiry focuses on the process of the story, how and why the story came to be, as well as what the story might become for the individual.

A distinction between qualitative research in general and narrative inquiry is that narrative inquiry includes the participants actively throughout the research process. The richness of detail in the participants' quotes conveys identity more powerfully than any interpretation. Placing the participant as the primary teller allows the reader to interpret the participant's story instead of a researcher's interpretation. The participant's voice is central to the telling.

The term narrative inquiry was first used by Connelly and Clandinin (1990) as a methodology to describe teachers' personal stories. Through their work Clandinin and Connelly (1995) have emphasized teachers' individual experiences and inquiries as legitimate sources of insight that can and should guide teacher practices. Further, they explain that telling stories of educational experiences allows teachers to determine and articulate what they know. Narrative inquiry, then, has teachers analyze and criticize the stories they hear and share as they work. Teachers use formal and informal stories to construct and make sense of knowledge in their everyday interactions and life (Webster & Mertova, 2007).

Robert Coles (1989) encourages the narrative researcher to (1) include participants in the storytelling process and (2) incorporate essential aspects of a story that help engage the audience. For example, according to Coles, the audience must consist of good listeners. Coles further guides researchers to consider the “manner of presentation; the development of plot, character; the addition of new dramatic sequences; the emphasis accorded to one figure or another; and the degree of enthusiasm, of emphasis, of coherence, the narrator gives to his or her account” (p. 23).

Narrative researchers play a dual role in establishing this type of relationship between themselves and the audience as they serve as their participants' narrators. The research participant's voice and story are her or his truth. The researcher's goal, then, is to present the truth according to the research participants.

Researchers from varying disciplines propose different ways to engage in narrative inquiry, yet the focus on the storied lived experiences of individuals and groups remains constant. Clandinin and Connelly (2000) view narrative inquiry as the study of transactional experience, the relationships between the people, places, and ideas involved in the research process. The transaction that they emphasize is between the narrator (interviewee), the listener (interviewer, potential listener or reader of the story), and the actual environment, or, as they would say, the landscape in which the events recounted in the story occur. Hence, these three phenomena (narrator, listener, environment) do not exist individually, but rather intersect where meaning is created and knowledge is produced. Narrative inquiry therefore positions researchers to examine the world of their participants as something both shaped by—and in some limited ways capable of shaping—historical interpretations. Through the use of narrative inquiry we, both researchers of teacher knowledge in traditional and nontraditional educational settings, seek to understand the stories of our participants. The researcher becomes involved by asking questions to better understand the story and its nuances. Narrative researchers frame the story as they determine what to tell and how to tell it in order to produce a full account in written form.

Narratives may guide people to better understand commitments for themselves, for their community, or for society at large. In Recovering Language, Reclaiming Voice: Menominee Language Revitalization Programs, Lemley (2006) interviewed a group of Menominee elders committed to revitalizing their indigenous language in communities on the reservation. Lemley asked the elders what being Menominee meant to them. One elder described how respect was an important aspect of her identity that she had learned throughout her upbringing. Her mother taught her self-respect that resulted in self-pride. She shared these notions when she recalled a conference she had attended at which the facilitator had asked her to respond to the question, “Who am I?”

This passage underscores this elder's struggle and strong connection to her Menominee identity from her younger years. Her generation experienced violent political acts including forced assimilation through on-reservation and off-reservation boarding schools. Robbed of their indigenous identity, this generation was expected to adopt the dominant white culture's ways of speaking and acting. This elder's connection to this moment, when she identified who she was, highlighted the importance of not just the language but also the culture, the land, and the community ties. This particular story guided Lemley to identify how people had been influenced to continue speaking and learning Menominee, even when society punished the speakers. Noteworthy, too, are the pronouns I and my and then we and our, signaling that this elder had her own culture and her own language, yet the tribe had a collective investment in the land. These words and the pronouns guided Lemley to explore Menominee culture, language, and land as these relate to research participants' individual as well as collective meanings.

We primarily situate our own research in Clandinin and Connelly's conception of teacher knowledge (2000). However, the unique aspect that we hope to add to this rich literature is an exploration of the transactional relationship in our individually experienced yet collectively interpreted narratives. To date, most theories of teacher practical knowledge have emphasized teachers' individual experiences and inquiry as legitimate sources of insight that can guide teacher practices. This literature, however, has not emphasized the collective experiences that can—and should—inform teaching practice. Among the contemporary theories of teacher practical knowledge, Clandinin and Connelly's conception (1995) of personal practical knowledge, tacit knowledge about teaching that an individual acquires from the actual act of teaching, comes closest to a thorough development of this idea. They comment,

Here Clandinin and Connelly highlight social and traditional experiences as sources of teacher knowledge. However, even in their work the emphasis remains on the individual's experience as a source of knowledge as opposed to collective historical experience as a source of knowledge. Our own research recognizes the utility of this collective approach to create and interpret narratives in marginalized communities in which strong communal ties have been an essential tool for survival throughout history.

Whereas our research focuses predominantly on K–12 teachers, in their chapter “Examples of Stories in Narrative Inquiry” Webster and Mertova (2007) provide examples of scholars and practitioners using narrative inquiry from such varied disciplines as legal education, medical education, neurology, adult education, primary education, theology, social history, and tertiary education. The stories, often based on reflections written by participants from diverse fields, reveal insights to improve existing conditions that quantitative measures, like satisfaction surveys, cannot. Narratives in these instances reflect the practical knowledge of lawyers, educators, physicians, and theologians who are describing, documenting, and subsequently conducting inquiry into the insights that govern their day-to-day practice. In their reflections the participants provide a case-study-like account of some of the most important moments of their practice for current colleagues and future practitioners, which often remain undocumented (see also Chapter Twelve, Practitioner Action Research, for a discussion of practical knowledge).