03 · What You Need to Know
How to Recognize and Formulate Genuinely Narrative Research Questions
Why Is Asking About Experiences Not Enough?
Experiences are investigated across many qualitative methodologies. Phenomenology, grounded theory, case study, qualitative description, and thematic analysis can all involve participants discussing events they have experienced.
Consequently, a question such as "What are teachers' experiences of implementing AI-supported assessment?" does not establish a narrative methodology by itself.
The question might support a qualitative descriptive study identifying participants' reported experiences. It might also support phenomenological inquiry if the objective concerns the meaning of experiencing a particular phenomenon.
A narrative approach becomes more clearly justified when the researcher asks how teachers construct accounts of their experiences, connect events across time, position themselves within those accounts, or interpret significant changes in their professional lives.
The distinction is not whether participants tell stories during interviews. It is whether the stories themselves become central to the analytical inquiry.
What Does It Mean to Treat a Story as an Object of Inquiry?
In narrative research, stories are not simply containers from which researchers extract information. They are meaningful constructions through which experiences and social realities are represented.
A participant may select particular events, establish connections among them, emphasize some experiences while minimizing others, and present a particular understanding of personal or collective identity.
For example, a teacher might describe an unsuccessful attempt to introduce educational technology as the beginning of professional growth. Another might construct a similar event as evidence of institutional neglect.
Both accounts concern technological difficulties, but their narrative meanings differ because the events occupy different positions within the stories.
Riessman's work on narrative methods emphasizes the importance of examining stories as situated forms of communication rather than treating them exclusively as repositories of factual statements.
A narrative research question should make some aspect of that construction analytically consequential.
What Features Can Make a Research Question Narrative?
Several features may establish a narrative orientation. They are not mandatory components that must all appear in one question.
| Narrative feature |
Analytical interest |
Illustrative question |
| Temporality |
How experiences and meanings are connected across past, present, and anticipated future. |
How do teachers narrate changes in their professional relationships with AI over time? |
| Turning points |
How particular events are constructed as moments of disruption, continuity, or transformation. |
Which events do teachers identify as turning points in their stories of technology adoption? |
| Narrative identity |
How people construct understandings of themselves through stories. |
How do early-career teachers construct professional identities in narratives of their first teaching year? |
| Narrative structure |
How stories are organized and how that organization contributes to meaning. |
How do instructors structure stories of success and failure when discussing AI-assisted teaching? |
| Storytelling context |
How audiences, relationships, and social circumstances influence accounts. |
How do teachers construct accounts of professional responsibility when discussing AI policies with colleagues? |
| Collective narratives |
How shared or competing stories circulate within groups and institutions. |
How are narratives of academic integrity constructed and contested within university departments? |
The appropriate feature depends on the phenomenon and the methodological approach. A narrative inquiry informed by Clandinin and Connelly may emphasize experience through temporality, sociality, and place. A structural narrative analysis may place greater emphasis on how a story is organized.
How Does Temporality Make a Question Narrative?
Temporality concerns how experiences are situated and interpreted across time. Narrative inquiry frequently examines how participants connect earlier events with present circumstances and imagined futures.
However, narrative temporality is not identical to chronological sequencing.
A participant may begin with a recent classroom incident, return to an earlier professional experience, and then describe expectations about future teaching. The movement among temporal positions may be important to the story's meaning.
Consider the question, "How do teachers narrate their transition from resisting generative AI to incorporating it into their teaching?"
This question directs attention to how a transition is constructed within participants' accounts. It does not necessarily presume that every teacher follows the same sequence or that resistance always precedes adoption.
Researchers examining chronology and turning points in narrative research should distinguish events as they occurred, where these can be established, from the meanings and relationships assigned to them through storytelling.
How Can Narrative Questions Investigate Identity?
Narrative identity concerns how individuals construct understandings of who they are through accounts of their experiences, relationships, and anticipated futures.
For example, teachers may describe themselves as innovators, cautious professionals, defenders of academic standards, or learners adapting to technological change.
These identities are not necessarily stable characteristics. They may be constructed differently across situations and in response to particular audiences.
A narrative question might ask, "How do university teachers construct professional identities through stories of adopting and resisting generative AI?"
This differs from asking which professional identities teachers possess. The narrative formulation examines how identity is produced and negotiated through accounts rather than treating it as a predefined attribute.
McAdams's scholarship on narrative identity provides an influential foundation for understanding how life stories contribute to identity construction, although researchers should not assume that every narrative study must adopt his psychological framework.
Can Narrative Research Questions Focus on Stories Rather Than People?
Yes. Narrative research is not limited to the life stories of individual participants.
Researchers may examine institutional narratives, collective accounts, stories circulating within professional communities, or competing interpretations of a shared event.
For example, a university might communicate a narrative that generative AI represents an opportunity for instructional innovation. Teachers may construct alternative narratives emphasizing professional autonomy or uncertainty about academic standards.
A research question could investigate how these competing narratives are produced and negotiated within the institution.
Such a study would require careful specification of the unit of analysis in narrative research. The principal analytical focus might be a narrative, a storytelling episode, or a set of institutional accounts rather than an individual participant's life.
How Do Narrative Questions Differ From Phenomenological Questions?
Narrative and phenomenological research may both investigate meaningful experiences, but their primary analytical orientations differ.
A phenomenological question might ask, "What is the lived experience of teachers navigating uncertainty about generative AI in assessment?"
A narrative question might ask, "How do teachers construct stories about becoming more confident or uncertain in their use of generative AI?"
The phenomenological formulation directs attention toward the experience of uncertainty. The narrative formulation emphasizes how participants organize and interpret experiences through stories of professional change.
This distinction should not be treated as absolute. Some phenomenological approaches attend to temporality, while narrative inquiries may investigate lived experience. The methodological choice depends on the particular tradition and analytical purpose.
How Do Narrative Questions Differ From Grounded Theory Questions?
Grounded theory commonly seeks to develop an explanatory theoretical account of a process, action, or interaction.
For example, a grounded theory question might ask, "How do university instructors negotiate institutional requirements when deciding whether to adopt generative AI?"
A narrative question might ask, "How do instructors narrate their experiences of negotiating institutional AI requirements across their professional trajectories?"
The grounded theory question directs attention toward developing a conceptual explanation of a social process. The narrative question concerns how that process is represented and interpreted through participants' stories.
Both approaches may generate conceptual insights. The distinction lies in the methodology's primary explanatory commitments and the procedures used to develop the findings.
How Do Narrative Questions Differ From Thematic Analysis Questions?
Thematic analysis can investigate patterns of meaning across qualitative data without requiring the researcher to preserve the organization of each participant's story.
For example, "How do university teachers perceive the benefits and challenges of AI-assisted assessment?" could support thematic analysis.
By contrast, "How do teachers construct narratives of professional opportunity and risk when recounting their experiences with AI-assisted assessment?" makes storytelling and narrative construction central.
The difference is not simply that the second question uses the word narratives. It directs the analysis toward how accounts are constructed and how particular experiences become meaningful within them.
Researchers should also recognize that thematic narrative analysis is an established approach. As Polkinghorne and Riessman demonstrate in different ways, attention to narrative content does not necessarily require abandoning narrative context.
The methodological issue is whether the analysis preserves the relationships that make the accounts meaningful as narratives.
Does Adding the Word "Story" Make a Research Question Narrative?
No. Methodological alignment cannot be established through wording alone.
Consider the question, "What stories do teachers share about the challenges of generative AI?"
This question may invite narrative material, but it does not clearly establish whether the researcher intends to investigate narrative construction or simply identify common challenges mentioned in participants' accounts.
A more explicitly narrative formulation might ask, "How do teachers construct stories of professional challenge and adaptation when recounting their experiences with generative AI?"
The revised question emphasizes the construction of accounts and their interpretive significance.
Nevertheless, researchers should not mechanically add phrases such as "construct stories" to every question. The wording should reflect a genuine analytical commitment that can be supported by the intended data collection and analysis.
How Specific Should a Narrative Research Question Be?
A narrative question should be sufficiently focused to guide the study without prescribing the story participants are expected to tell.
For example, asking how teachers narrate their successful transformation into AI innovators assumes a positive trajectory before the evidence has been collected.
A more open formulation would ask how teachers narrate changes in their professional practices and identities in relation to generative AI.
This allows participants to construct stories involving continuity, resistance, uncertainty, adaptation, or other developments that may not fit the researcher's expectations.
The question should identify the phenomenon and narrative focus while preserving space for unexpected meanings.
Should Narrative Questions Specify the Participant Group and Context?
Usually, sufficient contextual specification improves the question's clarity and feasibility.
A broad question such as "How do people narrate change?" provides little guidance about participant selection or the social circumstances relevant to the analysis.
A more focused question might ask, "How do early-career university teachers narrate changes in their professional identities during the introduction of generative AI assessment policies?"
This identifies a participant group, a relevant context, and a narrative phenomenon without determining the findings in advance.
However, the question need not include every sampling criterion or institutional detail. Those decisions can be explained in the methodology section.
When selecting participants and stories, researchers should ensure that recruitment follows the narrative question rather than relying on convenience alone.
How Does the Research Question Shape Narrative Data Collection?
A question about professional trajectories may require participants to recount significant events and explain how they connect experiences across time.
A question about storytelling practices may require attention to how accounts are produced during interviews, conversations, meetings, or other interactions.
A question about institutional narratives may require documents, public statements, meeting records, or other materials through which stories circulate.
These differences affect how evidence is collected and interpreted.
For example, a highly structured interview consisting entirely of brief factual questions may provide limited opportunities for participants to construct extended narratives. More open prompts may be useful when the objective is to understand how participants organize their accounts.
The decision about collecting narrative data in one interview or over time should reflect whether the question concerns retrospective storytelling or narratives developing through an ongoing process.
How Can You Test Whether Your Question Is Truly Narrative?
A useful methodological test is to consider what would happen if the study removed the stories' temporal and contextual organization and retained only coded statements about recurring topics.
If the question could still be answered adequately, a different qualitative approach may be more appropriate.
If removing narrative organization would eliminate important evidence about identity construction, turning points, storytelling practices, or how experiences become meaningful, the narrative orientation is stronger.
This is a practical diagnostic rather than a universal methodological rule. Some narrative approaches emphasize content more than structure, and the relevance of temporal organization varies.
Nevertheless, the test helps researchers examine whether narrative methodology is necessary rather than merely available.
What Should You Avoid When Writing Narrative Research Questions?
Avoid questions that prescribe a particular narrative trajectory, assume that participants share the same experiences, or treat stories as straightforward historical records.
For example, "How did teachers overcome their initial resistance and successfully adopt AI?" assumes that participants began with resistance and eventually achieved successful adoption.
Such wording may exclude stories of continuing resistance, ambivalence, selective adoption, or changing professional priorities.
Researchers should also avoid treating narrative inquiry as a way to make a general qualitative question sound more specialized.
The final question should make clear what the study seeks to understand through stories and why the selected narrative approach is capable of producing that understanding.
Watch Out
A research question does not become narrative merely by including words such as "story," "journey," or "experience." Its narrative character depends on whether the study investigates how accounts are constructed, organized, situated, or interpreted, and whether the planned analysis can meaningfully address those features.
