There are a number of different ways to use narratives for researching and exploring affordances in learning.
In the Affordances project, we are focusing on ‘retrospective coherence’, in line with complexity theory, which states that ’complex’ events are best described retrospectively, as you dont know, and cant know, exactly how they will pan out – they just arent that ’predictable’.
However, there is some interesting research that does work more ‘prospectively’, and here is a useful resource to explore just that, and to focus in more on biographies rather than on learning per se….
From Margaret Volante, at Surrey:
If you are interested in using narrative interviews in social research, you can get a sense of it by asking for a free electronic copy of the updated version of the ‘Guide to Biographic Narrative Interpretive Method’ . Write directly to Tom Wengraf, indicating your institutional affiliation and what you might use such narrative interviews for. He will then send you the updated current version right back. With a full bibliography, it complements and takes further his 2001 textbook ‘Qualitative research interviewing: biographic narrative and semi-structured method’ (Sage). His address for a free copy is tom@tomwengraf.com.
