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Issues Surrounding Narrative Design Essay

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Narrative design is useful to the advancement of educational research because the stories collected have the power to communicate key information otherwise not possible through other research designs. Through stories it is possible to learn about “personal account about classrooms, schools, educational issues and the setting in which they work” (Creswell, 2008, p. 511). Everyone has a story to tell about incidents, events and experiences whether long or short that are useful in understanding occurrences within a given context. With the information provided through storytelling, researchers are then able to engage in the restorying process to gain a better perspective of the individual’s story. Yet despite its wonderful offerings, …show more content…

This is a major concern to researchers, especially because they “rely heavily on self-reported information from participants” (Creswell, 2008, p. 522). Based on my personal experience, two common reasons why people provide false data is to provide a happy conclusion, which makes people comfortable, or to victimize because they seek attention. Fortunately, researchers may use several techniques to address the issue of collecting false data. The techniques used include “the collection of multiple field texts, the triangulation of data, and member checking” (Creswell, 2008). These techniques are useful to review and assess the data collected through stories as false or reliable. On the one hand, multiple field texts provide data from various sources, triangulation, and member checking assist in confirming the data provided as well as the findings as per the interpretation of the researcher (Creswell, 2008). Even though gathering stories poses a threat to the study, these techniques are useful to the researcher as he or she ensures the validity of the research. The second issue in gathering stories traces back to the concern of whether or not the participants are “able to tell the real story” (Creswell, 2008). At times, presenting the real story is dangerous to the participant because of the degree of detail and information provided as part of the story. For example,

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