The goal of the researcher is to make meaning from the narrative—what does the person's story mean. This emphasises the basic and important difference between qualitative and quantitative research—the design of the latter is such that the role of personal interpretation is limited and enquiry seeks to determine the relationships between a small number of variables. The design of qualitative studies is more open-ended, seeks broader and unanticipated patterns, is subjective (Atkinson 1998:64).
Introduction
All humans have stories, some many about the rich life they lived or are living. Everything happens in story form. We are often struck by how another person's story moves us—how it connects to something we are familiar with—the story's 'orenda'. Truly hearing and comprehending a life story can be transforming
Life story research is not about generalisations, but about the uniqueness of specific personal worlds or first-person narratives. The role of an individual's life, within a specific context, is best comprehended by means of story, which makes life explicit. A life story or slice-of-life serves as vehicle to gather central elements, events, beliefs of a person, to integrate them and to derive meaning. To tell the story requires reflection on experiences and events. The teller must give words to feelings, thoughts and sensory data.
The life story interview is a means to an end, namely to facilitate the story telling and to record it. The interview is an art that must allow for flexibility—it is impossible to foresee how the story would unfold. As research methodology it has its own standards of validity and reliability, namely internal consistency, corroboration and persuasion (pp. 58-62). The researcher must suspend all judgement. When people share their stories they are revealing their own inner lives.
Pre-interview preparation
Decisions need to be taken who need to be interviewed—typically those people with the relevant lived experiences.
Next they should be approached, the goal explained and they should be granted the option to share their stories or not. If in agreement, the person/s should be asked to prepare be reflecting on their personal memories. Perhaps individuals may have some hard copy or digital material (photos, etc.) to support and enrich their stories.
Then the appointment should be diarised—Atkinson recommends two to three hours, often more spread over a period, depending on the breath of the story.
The necessary functioning audio recorder and sufficient tapes must be acquired and the interviewer must familiarise her/himself with the equipment.
The right relaxed and comfortable setting for the interview is important—a space where the interviewee can tell her/his story uninterrupted.
Doing the interview
Start by recapping the purpose: to listen to and record her/his lived experiences with regard to …. Obtain informed consent about recording the story.
Ask the interviewee to start where she/he would like to begin the telling. Listen carefully and ask open-ended questions when not clear, for example 'I do not understand, please explain' or 'what did an event mean to you?' or 'how did you feel about …?' (Atkinson 1998:43-53 for example questions).
The interview is not a conversation. The interviewer is merely a facilitator or guide for the journey down memory lane. The interviewee should do most of the talking.
If the narrating wanders away from the tutorials, bring her/him back politely.
Be prepared, emotions might emerge. Be sensitive and do not try to fill pauses—it is better to wait than to interrupt silences. Respect boundaries—if a narrator does not want to share certain experiences let it be.
Be grateful for the time and the story shared—always remember the story teller owns the story. Restate what will happen with the recording. Emphasise the narrator's right to remain anonymous and/or exclusion of parts of the story. Explain that the story shared would be transcribed and returned for correction, changes, editions and/or verification.
Mark the recorded tape/s (primary 'document') clearly in order to know which is which and what the sequence is.
Transcribing
The recorded dialogue is far from useful. It needs to be carefully transformed into a readable narrative (the secondary document) that is true to the narrator's words.
Transcription can be very time consuming. Listen bit by bit, play and replay, until you are sure of the words spoken. A verbatim transcription is not necessary, editing for clarity and fluency is good, but should not change the essence of the narrative. False starts and fillers (like um's, uh's, etc) may be excluded. Any additional words should be in a different font and 'stage directions' added in brackets, e.g. the narrators sigh, laughter, tongue click, etc.
Once the transcription is done, do a quality check by re-listening to the recording while reading the transcription. Then sent the transcription to the interviewee to look over and edit as she/he see fit. This is the narrator/interviewer's privilege, because it is her/his story. If the narrator/interviewer makes corrections, delete and/or add, make amplifications or any other changes; then the narrator/interviewer's edited version become the primary document and the recording the rough draft.
Interpreting
One of the potential aspects of interpretation of a series of several life stories is to pick up from individual unique stories possible universal stories—known as personal mythmaking.
The researcher or group of researchers, need to share all our transcriptions with each other. Everybody involved in the project must read all the stories with the aim of finding meaning and in particular shared meaning—where stories intersect or are parallel and reinforce each other.
It is important to keep in mind that stories are themselves already interpretations. As research team we need to find the meaning/s.
Conclusion
Theory directs quantitative research—there is always a hypothesis being tested. In qualitative research the opposite is true, especially in the case of life stories. As a team of researchers we need to suspend theoretical assumptions until after the interpretation phase. At this point we would probably need to do a literature review to ascertain what theory and/or frame of reference already exists in the body of knowledge.
Ultimately, the researcher/s reverse the process with the view of publication:
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Undertake a synthesis of relevant literature
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Explain the research method
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Present the results with regard to interpretation of the various stories
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Explain the findings
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Draw conclusions and make recommends regarding further research
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Add the references
The proposed document as bulleted above may then be edited and submitted for publication. The researcher/s may even extract a paper to present at a conference.
Atkinson, R. (Robert) 1998. The life story interview. [Qualitative research methods Series No 44] Thousand Oaks: SAGE
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