Workshop: Introduction to Narrative Inquiry

1. Introduction to narrative
inquiry
with special consideration of
research on education
Esko Johnson, PhD (Education)
Principal Lecturer in English Language and
Communication
Kokkola Campus
Centria University of Applied Sciences,
Finland

2. NOTE: Before the workshop
Before taking part in the workshop, the
participants should read Chapter One
titled “Why Narrative”, in Clandinin &
Connelly’s book Narrative Inquiry
(2000), or view Jean Clandinin’s brief
interview available in Youtube at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnaTBqapMrE

3. Aim of this workshop
• You will find it easier and more
interesting to read and interpret
narrative research texts and assess
their value
• You will be able to consider or plan
to draw up research designs that
follow principles commonly observed
within NI

4. This workshop: showcasing and
asking key questions
Introducing the NI approach (with
some related studies), to raise your
awareness on:
– What is a narrative?
– What goes on in narrative
inquiry?
– How is narrative inquiry different
compared to other qualitative
approaches in education
research?
– What is not narrative inquiry?

5. The very vast area of NI
Narrative inquiry includes:
• eliciting, finding or constructing narratives
• analysing narratives (also: narratology)
• narrative analysis (in a way “narrative
synthesis”)
Overall, the use of narratives connects areas of
research, and it is multidisciplinary; education
and..
• Sociology, social work, political science,
psychology, anthropology/ ethnology…
• Arts, literature, linguistics, language studies,
communication sciences…
• Management studies, organisational research…
• Medicine, therapy, nursing science...

6. Mimesis1, mimesis2, and mimesis3
(Heikkinen, Huttunen & Kakkori 2000; Ricoeur 1981)
Life and its pre-
understanding
Composing a
story
Applying the story
to one’s life
Reformed life
and its pre-
Composing a
understanding
story
Life: Story:
“Original” “Picture”,
imitation

7. What goes on in narrative
inquiry?- 1
• NI covers and utilises narrative as both the method
and phenomena of study
• By eliciting, analyzing and understanding stories
that are lived and told, NI is located in qualitative
research methodology
• NI involves the reconstruction of a person’s
experience in relationship both to the other and to a
social milieu
• Paradigmatic vs narrative knowing (Bruner 1991)
• Analysis of narratives vs narrative analysis
(Bruner 1991; Clandinin & Connelly 2000)

8. What goes on in narrative
inquiry?- 2
• Relationship of the researcher to the
researched:
– interpretation and understanding of meaning
– the researcher and the researched are not
bounded but in relationship with each other;
both parties will learn in the encounter
• Shift: from the use of numbers toward the use
of words as data
• Shift: from a focus on the general and universal
toward the local and specific (knowledge,
knowing)
• Acceptance of alternative epistemologies or
ways of knowing
(Pinnegar & Daynes 2007)

9. What goes on in narrative
inquiry?- 3
“Narrative inquiry [is] a methodology based
upon collecting, analysing, and re-presenting
people’s stories as told by them (...) based
on a worldview (ontology) that we live our
storied lives and our world is a storied world
(...) Narrative represents, constitutes and
shapes social reality (…) Competing
narratives represent different realities not
simply different perspectives (…) Telling and
re-telling one’s story helps a person create a
sense of self.” (Etherington 2004, 75)

10. What is a story and what is not?
• Your research project will require you to define this;
– a relative definition: “it depends”
• Yet, the simple and “classical” definition: a story
has a beginning, middle, and end (evaluative part)
– a first‑person oral telling or retelling of an
individual – or not;
– a predicament, conflict, or struggle; a
protagonist or character; a sequence with a plot
during which the predicament is resolved in
some fashion – or not
• A story has a time, place, plot, and scene
• Compare: canonical story vs the story with the
breach (Bruner 1991)
• Compare: big story vs small story (incl. fragment
and metaphor)
• Compare: story as content vs form/language of
story

11. Stories and NI
“People shape their daily lives by stories of who they and
others are and as they interpret their past in terms of these
stories. Story, in the current idiom, is a portal through which a
person enters the world and by which their experience of the
world is interpreted and made personally meaningful.
Narrative inquiry, the study of experience as story, then, is
first and foremost a way of thinking about experience.
Narrative inquiry as a methodology entails a view of the
phenomenon. To use narrative inquiry methodology is to
adopt a particular view of experience as phenomenon under
study.”
(Connelly & Clandinin 2006, p. 375)

12. Critical Incidents
by Korhonen (2002)

13. ”Pre-historical site”
(GLG field trip)

14. ”Pre-historical site”
(GLG field report by a student)
”After we arrived to Alaveteli, we had a salmon soup and took out
for a walk in the forest. We were with two nice guides, who
wanted to show us a pre-historical village. We have been walking
for ten minutes before arriving in front of the first « house ». It was
in fact a depression in the ground. We saw a lot of them. These
depressions in the ground were used by pre-historical men as
basics of their huts. (…) But it is difficult after so much time to
determine exactly their usefulness. Of course there are still some
traces of their passage, but nothing else. It was really difficult to
imagine pre-historical men lived there.”
”Nevertheless we think that it was a little bit boring. Indeed we
saw about six depressions. Of course they had different uses, but
for us it was just holes! However, it was interesting to learn about
this pre-historical period.”

15. Story telling and retelling in
cyber learning environments
” The purpose (…) [was] to investigate story telling and
retelling as a learning strategy to facilitate meaningful
learning on environmental education in cyberspace. (…)
story telling (…) can build a richer context (…) learners can
enhance environmental ethics indirectly.
[T]he development of a cyber learning environment via
computer networks (…) helps them build environmental
awareness through storytelling at the elementary level. The
project (…) facilitating narrative inquiry with individual and
collaborative learning through online activities. (…) )[T]his
study suggests design strategies for building cyber learning
environment through story telling.”
(Heo 2004)

16. ”Becoming a foreign language
teacher in the changing
landscape of a university of
applied sciences” (transl)

17. Professional values as explained in
my autobiographical study
(Johnson 2011*)
– Cosmopolitan values (a.k.a. global citizenship)
vs everyday nationalism
– Collaboration for change of teaching and
learning (using ICT as a ”tool”)
– Helping the student, while having an eye on the
(language) needs of the working life
– Equity (especially in the local worklife
community)
– Life-long learning, uncompromising (?)
professional inquiry (’teacher-as-researcher’)
(* I refer to my handout which is to be available in the workshop)

18. So what is the position and
justification of NI in the
”jungle” of education
research paradigms?

19. Assumption: Teacher’s practical
professional knowledge is
dialogic and contextualised, and
it is created and accessible in a
storied form
– Beliefs, imagery and metaphors
– Reality: relational, temporal, continuous
– Everyday realities and happenings in
teachers’ and students’ lives make a
difference - evolved into:
– Life stories and identities
– Postmodern education research: generic
or “scientific” principles of teaching and
learning are not in the foreground in NI
(See Clandinin & Huber 2010; Clandinin, Pushor & Orr 2007; Elbaz-Luwisch 2007 for more)

20. Paradigm Postpositivism Pragmatism Constructivism
Res. methods Primarily QUAL QUAN + QUAL QUAL
Logic Primarily deductive Deductive + inductive Inductive
Epistemology Modified dualism. Subjective perspective.
(knowledge; Research findings Objective and The producer and target
what do we probably subjective of scientific knowledge
know and how) represent”truth” are inseparable
Axiology Research inquiry is Values have a central
(value concepts; laden with values,
what are the which can, however, be role in the interpret- Scientific inquiry is
values) controlled or ation of research and laden with values
bracketed its findings
Ontology External reality must be
Critical or accepted. Select
(concepts of explanations that best Relativism
being, qualities transsendental lead to the expected
of being and outcome
reality)
Causalities Relations of social All phenomena are
phenomena have Phenomena have may interconnected and
permanent laws which have causal shape each other.
can be explored. The connections, but these Cause and effect can
causes and effects of links can never be never be separated in
phenomena can be precisely confirmed. the explanation.
hypothetised.
Adapted from Tashakkori & Teddlie (1998)

21. Interviews with foreign
students
1. Adapting to living and studying in Finland. Integration and becoming a
member of the COU (Centria) community.
2. Development of your Finnish language skills
3. Interaction with other people. Network of friends and acquaintances.
4. The most important things that happened in your life (since April 2007). -
Positive and negative experiences.
5. How you have grown as a person.
6. Your plans for life after graduation; career and prospects)
7. English language and communication: your English skills today; how you
improved during [the past academic year]; your strengths and needs today;
aims and objectives; how you want to develop.
8. The English course you took with me in [the academic year]; things you
learned in the course; improvements your would like to suggest.

22. From field text towards interim text,
and then towards research text
Based on the interview transcript, I wrote a
story about the students’ experience as a foreign
student at Centria, (as this unfolded to me in the
thematic, unstructured interview of 1 to 2 hrs);
for this:
1. First, I listened to the interview several
times during many weeks, without any stops
or memoing
2. Next, I wrote a detailed thematic narrative
(narrative condensation)
– This could also be termed a dialogic
meaning structure (co-created by
interviewee and interviewer)
3. Finally, I wrote further thematic
condensations, as I worked my way towards
the research text (Johnson 2011)

23. An interview transcript
Mary: (*) Yeah. And we… I have a period, I had a period, that
maybe it’s quite, something like study, like, you know, it’s like
this way. And then you learn quite good. (Esko: Oh yeah.) And
you feel down. (Esko: Yeah, it’s the ups and downs also.) It’s
difficult to say that this kind of…
Esko: OK. I, I think this is part of human life that we never have
(Mary: yeah) everything so level but it’s going to go up now.
(Mary: yeah) You have to accept that.
Mary: Yeah.
Esko: Although it’s it’s not always very nice to have that.
Mary: Yeah. But like language, at the beginning, I feel quite good
here. Like only the language. And I feel depressed. (….) And
here now I feel more better. And then maybe more difficult.
And then that we got here. So it’s quite good.
Esko: When you were here, you know, everything was quite good
and you were all excited. Did you then say to your to yourself,
phew, I have had a very good day today? (laughter)
Mary: Ooh, I just feel that I’m happy and (Esko: okay) ooh,
that’s very nice, so sweet, that only…. So yeah. But I, and in
the morning-time when I stand up I feel I am very happy.
(* pseudonym)

25. LISA’S SECOND STORY (2008)
Lisa arrives to my interview well ahead of time. We sit We start to talk about weather, and
down and talk about the weather. So far it’s been cold
weather in May, we think. Lisa asks me if it’s going to then discuss the summer season
be summer soon in Kokkola. I reply I don’t really that is ahead of us now, and about
think so, in my language "kesä" starts in June
("kesäkuu") when it’s time to dress in a t-shirt only. her and my plans.
For Lisa this will be the first summer to spend in
Finland. Last autumn, in 2007, when Lisa came back Lisa thinks I’m always busy. We
to Kokkola, she thought it was very cold. Lisa adds talk about being busy. Lisa says in
that with the foreigners coming back, the winter will
come, too. We discuss Lisa's plans for the summer. It developing countries people are
seems that she’ll to stay in Kokkola for most of this much more in a hurry.
summer.
Talking about me, Lisa says I always look like I'm in a
great hurry, running to do things. I recognize myself
and laugh at this comment and say you should never
run, you shouldn’t waste your time on running but be
thoughtful about your steps. Lisa says in the
developing countries people are in fact much more in a
hurry, since they have a pressure for work. Everybody
is in a hurry when they work. In the morning they run.
So they are much more in a hurry than people here in
Europe.
Lisa asks me about my research project. Will I do research as Lisa asks about my research.
I did last year? I tell her yes, I will focus this summer and
autumn term much more on research than previously. I'm (….) (…)
going to analyse, write conclusions based on the data, and
then I will be finalising my thesis at the end of the year. (….)
(…)

26. From Outi’s interview
(Johnson 2011)
”We work in a service profession, and I would like to
be a consultant to my students. In online teaching and
learning, the teacher is pretty much in a consultant’s
role, giving feedback, guiding them, giving them
advice and answering their questions (...) It’s about
this aspect I like to explain to all of my classes, that I
may know something about the English language, but
I don’t perhaps know much about their field of study.
You see, quite often I’ll have to ask them about
something. In a way, it involves us to combine our
expertise: They explain this thing to me, this new
technology that so far I haven’t time to discuss with
my colleagues during the coffee break.. It’s such a
nice image, isn’t it, about collaboration.” (Outi’s
interview, May 2003)

27. My Story as a Music (Teacher) Student
(from my Communication Skills class)
Part One - My significant learning experiences
NOTE: Remember to discuss episodes and turning points; important people who had an
impact on my learning; situations and institutions.
Reasons: to make the story temporal; personal and social; to tell about your stressful
moments and personal growth, too.
1 What did I learn in the areas of playing, performing, singing; music education and music teaching?
How and why did I learn…?
2 What is my favourite repertoire? What kind of repertoire do I aim to learn?
3 For instrumentalists: What is my instrument (instruments) like? Why do I like it (them)? For
vocalists: What is my singing voice like (vocal range and quality)? How do I like it?
4 What did I learn in the areas of composing and improvising? How and why did I learn…?
5 What did I learn in the area of theoretical knowledge on music? How and why did I learn…?
Part Two - SWOT – strengths, weaknesses (“internal”); opportunities and threats (“external”)
1 What are my strengths as a music student?
- As a player/singer?
- As a music pedagog?
- As a learner of theoretical knowledge on music?
2, 3,4: Repeat the above for weaknesses; opportunities and threats. Note that opportunities and
threats are external, i.e., outside of you.
(…)

28. Eve’s story as a music student
(from my Communication Skills class)
The job of a music teacher was one of my dream jobs in school. I
started to play accordion when I was 8 years old. I would have
liked violin lesson but all the student places were full already. I
was in many competitions of accordion playing and I will go to
many competitions in my future. My favourite repertoire is fast
and slow pieces. A good folk music band consist of violin(s),
double bass, harmonium, accordion, guitar and maybe singing.
My instruments are two- and five row accordions. I like to play
these cos if I´m going to a gig I have always the melody and
bass side with me. So I don´t need an accompanist.
When I had my thesis concert I was thinking that this is my
concert, everyone will came here to watch and listen to my
concert so. That was very stressful time. I have to think how the
audience will like my concert. Is it too long? Too short? Boring?
The concert must look like me. It was a huge relief when the
concert was over and the audience liked it.
I like composing but I have never made whole pieces or I mean
that I have never arranged any my own pieces for bands. When
I´m composing some kind a piece, the best way usually is
improvising. Theory does not interest me at all. It´s enough that
I pass the tests. A musician and music teacher will have to be
dealing with strange people.

29. From my seminar presentation in 2007

30. ”A new note about the [Non-European] culture.Their
religion is very interesting. Also the timing as well.We
arranged a meeting and they come one hour later than the
real time. In their country they told me that no one is going
on the exact time.They are not hurrying and it often
happens to them that they [are] late like two hours and it is
normal. Of course for me it was not a good feeling to wait
for them and they didn’t come but we have to understand
them.”
”But on the other side it could be really hard to make
business with them. Otherwise the [Country X] people are
really nice and friendly and if you have problem they help
you any time.They share everything with you but if you tell
them ”no thank you” it is very rude for them.They will feel
that you don’t like them and you can easily hurt them if you
refuse their offer.” (Exchange student’s diary, GLG 2007)

31. Conclusion 1: the merits and
challenges of NI

32. Conclusion 1: the merits and
challenges of NI
• Highlights people’s (students’, teachers’) lived experience
(on and off campus) [M]
• Makes us think of the meanings of specific events in our
lives (as students, as teachers) [M]
• Helps us explore the continuity and discontinuity of our
experience (as students, as teachers) [M]
• Can be embedded in mixed methods designs [M]
• [How] do we really learn to reflect on ourselves and our
life events against whatever makes our ‘real life’? [C]
• Striking a balance between our stories (ourselves) and the
stories of others [C]
• Striking a balance between ‘big’, ‘long’, or
transformative, or key stories and ‘small’ stories [C]
– Whose transformation? Whose key? – Why so big?
Adapted from Bamberg (2007); Clandinin & Huber (2010); Clandinin, Pushor & Orr (2007)

33. Conclusion 2: what is not
narrative inquiry?

34. Conclusion 2: what is not
narrative inquiry as I see it?
Research studies (e.g. with case-study approaches)
which:
– Describe something in a “storied way” - yet doing so
disconnect and objectify => monologic, non-
relational
• NI is “much more than just telling stories”
(Clandinin, Pushor & Orr 2007; cf. Bruner 1991)
– Blur the context(s), temporality and dialogue of
human experience
– Attempt to gain ”objective” data and abstract
knowledge (generalisations, fixed meanings) by
compromising the multitude and diversity of human
experience
– Fail to commit to ethical standards and high quality
requirements of NI

35. BIBLIOGRAPHY
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36. BIBLIOGRPAPHY ( “UNDER CONSTRUCTION”)
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