Cresswell Week 4 Chapter 4

The goal of narrative therapy is to change the impact that the problem or issue has on one’s life (Shapiro & Ross, 2002, hence changing the individual. The individual narrates their life story as the clinician strives to assist the client’s in identifying with their experience and to address concerns in their life after a social, political and/or cultural lifestyle. (Shapiro & Ross, 2002).

Narrative: An individual intro outlining their thoughts on the conclusions of their writings, and how individuals understand the meaning of their lives through the process of narrating it (Andrews et al., 2013).

Laws and policies exist at all levels of society; they are the foundation of how a business or a society functions. From personnel management to driving a car, laws and policies govern execution of these actions. In this paper, I will summarize a situation I encountered at work, and explain how it correlates to the content of Chapter One, (Bagley & Savage, 2010).

Compare and contrast the following qualitative research methods: case study, phenomenological, and grounded theory. Synthesize the findings and determine which is best suited to a study on your potential dissertation topic. Analyze the issues associated with sample selection, validity, and bias in such a study.

There are several types of methods that can be used for qualitative research. They include ethnographic, case study, phenomenological, ground theory, and critical study. The following will detail what the methods are and how they could be used in a classroom at Stephen Decatur Middle School. The research question being utilized for each example scenario is “will the use of audio books increase engagement for seventh grade special education students during independent reading sessions?”

Research methodology and methodological approaches that is, the structured process of conducting research and the overall concepts and theories which underpin research respectively (Bryman, 2008), occupy a central position in the research process as they are both shaped by and translate the researcher’s epistemological position. Epistemology then refers to a researcher’s philosophical stance about the nature, derivation and scope of knowledge (Gilbert, 2008). These positions are seldom ‘spelt out’ but rather understood in the matter of research methodology and approach (Sarantakos, 2005).

The reading by Atkinson provides information on using life stories approach in various disciplines. By using life stories the researcher noted that we gain context and recognize meaning about individuals experiences. There are four classic functions of stories including psychological, social, mystical-religious and cosmological. The reading also highlighted some benefits of telling one’s life story. For instance, sharing one’s story is a way of releasing certain burden and gives us a better sense of how we want our story to end. The last part of the reading explained guidelines that will prepare or get one ready to do an interview. The guidelines includes finding out who you want to interview and learn more about. The last step is encouraging the individual to share their story by being a good listener and asking open ended questions. The reading by Silverman discussed in-depth information about open-ended interviews. There are several problems the interviewer must resolve when doing open-ended questions such as deciding how to present yourself, gaining and maintaining trust to ask sensitive question and establishing rapport with the respondents. The reading also expressed many interactional practices when conducting qualitative interviewing. These practices involves trying to interact with the person by understanding their experience and that interviewers are active participants.

To some researchers, a life story and life history are used interchangeably, meaning that they are a personal narrative from birth to present (Atkinson, 2002). However, others state that life stories are a personal narrative of a specific topic or issue, event, or time span of a person’s life (DiCicco-Bloom & Crabtree, 2006; Denzin, 1989; McAdams, Josselson, & Lieblich, 2001), but others state that it is just a narrative in the participant’s own words and perspective (Bertaux, 1981; Riessman, 2002). For this study, the term life story will be called life story interview where a participant will speak about a specific time span of their life around a specific topic—educational experiences but will be prompted about specific experiences via a semi-structured interview (DiCicco-Bloom & Crabtree,

This section provides an introduction to the different types of research paradigms and methods before concluding on the approach that this study will undertake.

A research paradigm is a way of observing the world. It is composed of certain philosophical assumptions that guide and direct action and thinking. Traditional the main worldviews and paradigms that are presented as being fundamentally opposed are positivism/postpositivism and constructivism/interpretivism (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007; Morgan, 2007). Mixed methods research has been addressed as a response to the ongoing debates discussing the advantages and disadvantages of qualitative versus quantitative research as a result of the paradigm battle.

When utilizing a qualitative approach, the task becomes one of determining the qualitative method to be used. Additionally, Stake (2010) used purpose, research design, and methodical data techniques as a way of classifying types of qualitative research. Similarly, Cresswell & Cresswell (2007) spoke of five practices of qualitative research. These five practices consist of biography, phenomenological study, grounded theory study, ethnography, and case study. This researcher chose a phenomenological study for this research project.

When selecting a research approach, Creswell (2014) outlines criteria that affect the choice of one approach over another. I have already discussed how my worldview, personal experiences, and identified problem of practice and the questions affect my research. The design, methods, and audience of my emerging research will also be considered in terms of choosing a research approach.

An example would be a study on individual experiences being explored and discussed in a literary manner such as a researcher opting to report on the experiences and meaning of an international student studying in a university in Malaysia by collecting on what he/she attributes to the story using a combination of tools such as interviews, observations and other related documents. The researcher must create a close rapport and communication with the informant in the quest to capture the depth of the experiences, following a chronology of events, that may include information on facts, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours or processes. Generally, this approach is time-consuming and thus for student researchers only a few participants would be the case subjects. Basically, there are four possible types of narrative research, which are:

A research methodology is the plan and structure of investigation to obtain answers to research questions (Kothari, 2005). To collect data in this study, a qualitative research / Narrative inquiry approach will be used. What “narrative researchers hold in common is the study of stories or narratives or descriptions of a series of events” (Pinnegar & Daynes, 2007, p. 4).

The continued growth of knowledge and concepts can refer as the research philosophy (Singh, 2010). Knowledge and its principles that are concerning in the research philosophy is crucial for an appropriate research analysis (Jonker and Pennink, 2010). Nine different theoretical those are generally applied in social research such as postmodernism, feminism, interpretivism, constructionism, and positivism (Crotty, 1998). Two types of this theory are described in detail below.