I am currently working on the analysis portion of my dissertation. I am using narrative inquiry and I am looking for the best data analysis technique for retelling a participants's story.
Dear Sharon Pierce,
A very wonderful topic. Generally speaking, storytelling and/or retelling offers a highly natural and powerful technique, which can help learners to convey, learn, and retain information. As such, story telling/retelling has a prestigious position in the related literature because the structure of a story can potentially help the researcher to examine how the human brain reacts to the experiences in a story and how it receives and remembers the information therein. For further details, I refer you to the following links, which hopefully can satisfy what you are looking for.
Best regards,
R. Biria
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=17268&context=rtd
https://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/2466/2525549/Volume_medialib/.../CH16.PPT
https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1957&context=etd
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=9004290109
when you say data analysis technique it sounds like you are looking for a computer program or some template you can lay down on your data...but my experience is that you should examine each story in context before you decide what else to do with it. did you ask for a story? if not, if it just popped up spontaneously in answering a question or chatting, then what was the trigger, why this story, why now? how does it shade or deepen or explain the material being discussed? not just what are the themes, but how to do they relate to what was being talked about and why a story, why this indirection, what did the story allow the narrator to explain, to share? Of course it is the stories themselves you want to analyze, not your retelling of them.
You can also do some standard narrative analysis, especially if you have recorded the stories, analyzing pauses, elaborations or explanations, the level of detail, the level of emotion, the tone, when is it self mocking, or modest, or angry, use the emotional clues to get to a deeper level of analysis, what parts of the story are disturbing to the narrator, or especially gratifying, or proud...
good luck, this is a great project.
Irene
Thank you, Irene! I am using a qualitative research design with narrative inquiry. I conducted semi-structured interviews, which I transcribed verbatim. I am wanting to retell their stories. I guess what I should have asked was for a specific method to retell the story. My committee members have varying and conflicting ideas. I have considered using either Polkinghorne's narrative analysis or critical event narrative analysis. Or, am I overthinking a technique? I just want to be done =)
if you used semi structured interviews, you were looking at specific topics, looking for specific answers to questions you have, you were not just looking to see what was in your data, nor were you trying to analyze story telling from a cultural or linguistic perspective. So, if I were you, I would use a thematic analysis, and retell those portions of stories that address the themes you are focusing on. So a simple thematic analysis is one approach, and I do find critical event analysis helpful. Just focus on answering the questions you started out with. That is what I would do in your shoes.
Irene
Thank you, Irene! I spent yesterday reading Webster and Mertova's book on critical event analysis but might go with a simple thematic analysis. I feel like I'm overthinking this and making it more difficult on myself. I sincerely appreciate you answering my questions.
Hi Sharon, How about the Listening Guide Methode by Carol Gilligan? It is a voice centered method, quite time consuming, but worth it to dive into someones story...
Best,
Carolina
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