11/23/21, 12:37 AM Narrative inquiry - Qualitative Study Design - LibGuides at Deakin University

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Qualitative Study Design

Qualitative Study
Design
Narrative inquiry

Methodologies

Phenomenology
Purpose
Grounded theory

Ethnography
Narrative inquiry can reveal unique perspectives and deeper understanding of a situation.
Historical
Often giving voice to marginalised populations whose perspective is not often sought. 
Narrative inquiry

Action research

Case Studies

Field research

Methods

Sampling Definition
Appraisal

Narrative inquiry records the experiences of an individual or small group, revealing the lived
Glossary
experience or particular perspective of that individual, usually primarily through interview
Further resources which is then recorded and ordered into a chronological narrative. Often recorded as
biography, life history or in the case of older/ancient traditional story recording - oral
history.  

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Methods

Interview
Qualitative survey 
Recordings of oral history (documents can be used as support for correlation and
triangulation of information mentioned in interview.) 
Focus groups can be used where the focus is a small group or community. 

Strengths

Reveals in-depth detail of a situation or life experience.  

Can reveal historically significant issues not elsewhere recorded. 

Narrative research was considered a way to democratise the documentation and lived
experience of a wider gamut of society. In the past only the rich could afford a biographer
to have their life experience recorded, narrative research gave voice to marginalised
people and their lived experience. 

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Limitations

“The Hawthorne Effect is the tendency, particularly in social experiments, for people to
modify their behaviour because they know they are being studied, and so to distort
(usually unwittingly) the research findings.” SRMO

The researcher must be heavily embedded in the topic with a broad understanding of the
subject’s life experience in order to effectively and realistically represent the subject’s life
experience. 

There is a lot of data to be worked through making this a time-consuming method beyond
even the interview process itself. 

Subject’s will focus on their lived experience and not comment on the greater social
movements at work at the time. For example, how the Global Financial Crisis affected their
lives, not what caused the Global Financial Crisis. 

This research method relies heavily on the memory of the subject. Therefore, triangulation
of the information is recommended such as asking the question in a different way, at a
later date, looking for correlating documentation or interviewing similarly related
participants. 

Example questions

What is the lived experience of a home carer for a terminal cancer patient? 

What is it like for parents to have their children die young? 

What was the role of the nurse in Australian hospitals in the 1960s? 

What is it like to live with cerebral palsy? 

What are the difficulties of living in a wheelchair? 

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Example studies

Francis, M. (2018). A Narrative Inquiry Into the Experience of Being a Victim of Gun
Violence. Journal of Trauma Nursing, 25(6), 381–388. https://doi-org.ezproxy-
f.deakin.edu.au/10.1097/JTN.0000000000000406 

 Kean, B., Oprescu, F., Gray, M., & Burkett, B. (2018). Commitment to physical activity and
health: A case study of a paralympic gold medallist. Disability and Rehabilitation, 40(17),
2093-2097. doi:10.1080/09638288.2017.1323234 https://doi-org.ezproxy-
f.deakin.edu.au/10.1080/09638288.2017.1323234

References

Liamputtong, P. (2009). Qualitative research methods. Oxford University Press. Retrieved

from http://ezproxy.deakin.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=cat00097a&AN=deakin.b2351301&site=eds-live

Padgett, D. (2012). Qualitative and mixed methods in public health. SAGE. Retrieved from
http://ezproxy.deakin.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=cat00097a&AN=deakin.b3657335&authtype=sso&custid=deakin&site=e
live&scope=site

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