Dear Helen,

have you seen that:

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/2633/1/Narrativeinterviewing.pdf ?

worth having a look at a good chunk of a decent references at the end of the article, too!

Good luck with your narrative research,

Justine.

"Tell me your story of......"

Anything that suggests a more complicated approach will take you away from the essence of narrative research. Prompts should elicit more of the story and the success of the interview is entirely due to the quality of the relationship you can develop with the participant and the use of good listening skills. 

I totally agree with Theodore, if you want to provoke a narration, it is necessary to be very well prepared concerning your issues of interest, but a schedule in any sense wouldn't be helpful. Therefore i suggest, tell your interviewpartner about the topics you are interested in but do not provide something like a schedule or a structure of interview parts. Your partner will think about this and will anticipate that you will ask him in a certain way. I strongly recommend the works of Fritz Schutze, who has worked intensively on narrative interviews as method in the field of biographical research. Maybe this will be a good starting point: 

Schutze, F. (2008). Biography analysis on the empirical base of autobiographical narratives: How to analyse autobiographical narrative interviews -part one. European Studies on Inequalities and Social Cohesion, (1-2), 153-242. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/60322027?accountid=10755

Finally it would be helpful for any kind of recommendation on methodical issues to know what your research question is. Why do you suppose narrative interviews are the appropriate method for your interests?

I agree that there is a difference between preparing (i.e., reflecting on the kinds of things you want to learn) and writing any interview guide. My personal preference is to keep the introduction to the interview as general as possible. Remember, one of the key questions in your respondents' minds will be: "What does he want from me?" The more explicit you are about specifying that, the narrower the participants' responses will be, and you would risk losing important insights on topics that you had not anticipated in advance.

I also tend to do minimal probing during the initial account, and then ask follow-up questions after the participant has finished.

Wow thank you all for such great information and sources.  Just what i needed to further my journey.  I very much appreciate you all taking time to respond to my question. Best wishes helen

Dear Helen,

Thank you for beginning this conversation! 

I wondered about your narrative beginnings?  How did your research project begin from your own stories to live by?  And how do your stories bump with dominant stories around you?  What are the tensions in your own experience that invite you to explore with another person? Personal, social, and practical justification for the research open space for going into the research conversation. And then yes, most narrative inquiries begin with relationship and asking your participant to tell their stories.  A good example is of Andrew's stories of playing basketball. It is on page 91 in Jean Clandinin's 2013 book called Engaging in Narrative Inquiry.

I am a narrative inquirer and the current Horowitz Scholar at the Centre for Research for Teacher Education and Development (CRTED) at University of Alberta in Canada. Every summer there is a Gandhian Peace Institute where Jean Clandinin teaches a course on narrative inquiry. We also have many visiting scholars from all over the world who come during the year to work within a relational narrative inquiry community.   Many of this community also gather every year at AERA (this year in Washington) through the Narrative SIG.  If you are interested in methodology in the tradition of Clandinin and Connelly you might like to join us for further conversations!?  There is also a chance I will be in Ireland in March if we want to further this conversation over coffee.

Kind regards,

Lynne

Dear Lynn

many thanks for this generous reply and I very much appreciate the information and expertise. Thank you I have the text that you highlight and will re visit Andrews stories. In a previous study I used collaborative action research study and I was aware that when I met a group of experienced nurses that before we could begin our work on developing the study it was important for them as a group to share stories about various experiences. I always timetabled time for this over our next few meetings. On reflection this was not a new phenomenon as I began to recognise storytelling among my lecturer colleagues too. This seemed to be a way that nurse teachers shared meaningful experiences and I was very much part of this storytelling activity myself. I had already gathered some narratives from the older generation in my family and the power of the story and its content became more meaningful as I began to plan the empirical element of my Prof Doc programme. My study focuses on the career and educatonal experiences of nurse teachers and when I discovered the work of Clandinin and Connelly (via Dewey) the approach resonated with me strongly and led me to investigate this mehodogy more closely.  I have developed two interview questions to initiate stories with participants and have included some follow up questions when the story comes to a natural end 

·        what were your hopes, desires, feelings (temporality)

·        who were the people, factors  involved    (sociality)

·        can you tell me about the environment/location where this took place   (place)

I will not know the potential participants (three from across the UK hopefully) and I thought that once they have contacted me and we arranged date for interview I could forward the questions as a way of initiating a relationship by being transparent in my approach. Hence my original question, but I could not find any evidence for doing this. I hope to meet Jean Clandinin in Glasgow next year at the qualitative methods conference and I have submited an abstract for this.  An opportunity to travel to Alberta and participate on a course on narrative inquiry would be fantastic but unfortunately not likely for a number of reasons. Great you may visit Ireland next year and a catch up may be possible depending on location in Ireland and dates and times. Once again thank you for such an encouraing reply Lynn. Best wishes helen

Dear Helen,

I think your questions are lovely.  And you clearly come from the midst of a web of relationships and stories within the nursing profession already that will carry you into future conversations with your participants.  If you do decide to share these questions in your consent form or more specifically before you meet your participant for the first time, let me know how it goes!

I have learned so much from the narrative inquiry work done in the field of nursing.  One of the things that strikes me is the way nurses write and talk in a way that are grounded in the physical body.  There are many wonderful inquirers at the Centre who are nurses.  Vera Caine is one of them.  Have you read her work?

In order for us to stay in touch - my email is [email protected].

Kind regards,

Lynne

I like Carol Gilligan's Listening Guide. It is not fully "narrative" but it has the kind of edges that I think you might be interested in.

Dear Helen

I would like to refer you to the following book:

Ruthellen Josselson, 2013, Interviewing for Quolitative Inquiry - A relational approach

The Gilford Press. 

Ariela Gidron

Teacher Eudcator, Narrative reseracher and Academic editor

I was looking for the narrative interview and found above discussion very useful one. I have searched many text and some text  may useful in the light of above discussion. I found this website quite helpful: http://www.case-stories.org/narrative-interviews-1/

Thanks a lot. insightful.

Hello! Check out Tom Wengraf (2004;2013) work on Biographical Narrative Interview Methods (BNIM) online

Hi Helen. I endorse what Jessica said. I am using narrative inquiry for my PhD research and found Tom Wengraf's Biographical Narrative Interview Method very helpful indeed.

Wengraf, T. (2001). Preparing Lightly-Structured Depth Interviews: A Design for a BNIM-Type Biographic-Narrative Interview Qualitative Research Interviewing: Biographic narrative and semi-structured methods (pp. 111-152). London, England: SAGE Publications, Ltd.

 Wengraf's approach is highly specified. For a more general approach, you might look at the work of Dan McAdams on narrative identity.

Hi Brenda!

I am also using NI for my PhD. I am starting my fieldwork next week. Would be good to keep in touch.

Definitely investigate Wengraf first. Good luck with the interviews.

Oh, one more thing. He recommends that immediately after the interview you sit quietly and write all your thoughts and impressions of the person and what they have said. I also only had time for a single interview. They ranged in time from one to four hours. The field notes you write will be invaluable. I took up to an hour to record my thoughts and impressions literally outside the door. Sometimes just sitting in my car and talking into the microphone of my cell phone.

This is a short but useful paper on the ins and outs of narrative interviews that I have found useful - full text available on RG

Article Narrative interviews: an important resource in qualitative research

This was really helpful, thank you so much! @Jessica, @Brenda, I'd love to hear how your work panned out. I am just about to start my research for my PhD using narrative (among other methodologies)

Hi Shaaroni, I had a lot of success with my narrative interviewing method and have completed my PhD! The one thing about narrative research though, is that it takes a long time. Also, there are also lots of questions in my mind around restorying and I established my own understanding of it, adding I hope, to the narrative discourse. When you get to restorying, I'll be happy to chat. Enjoy your journey - I loved mine.

Hi guys. I'm also using NI, masters. Am still struggling to craft my interview protocol. Thank you so much for your comments. I will check Wengraf Tom's work.