Narrative interview

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The narrative interview is a qualitative method in the social sciences to receive and evaluate data from an interviewee in a certain way. The method was introduced into social research by Fritz Schütze and is mainly used in biographical research. The term narrative is important for this type of interview (see also narrative theory ).

history

The narrative interview as a method of empirical social research was developed in Germany from around the 1970s. Concepts from phenomenology ( Alfred Schütz ), ethnomethodology , symbolic interactionism ( George Herbert Mead ) and sociology of knowledge ( Karl Mannheim ) were used. Assumptions from the sociology of language and psychoanalytic methods play an important role in the evaluation of interviews .

Goal of the method

The aim of the method in the context of biographical research is not the acquisition of objective data on a curriculum vitae such as school education, career history or the like, which in principle can be recorded without any problems using quantitative methods. Instead, by capturing and interpreting the narration of the interviewee's own biography, their own perspective should be captured in the form of the subjective contexts constructed by them.

Central to this is the assumption, developed especially in symbolic interactionism, “that social reality does not 'exist' outside the actions of the members of society, but rather is established within the framework of communicative interactions.” Accordingly, the subtleties of biography as social reality are only available through language understandable by those involved.

The interview evaluation does not have the function of checking research hypotheses , as is the case with common quantitative methods . Instead, the interview is preceded by the formulation of an open research question . From the interpretation of the interviews, hypotheses are then obtained that answer the research question.

The form of the interview

The narrative interview is opened by an initial question (narration request) corresponding to the topic, which is intended to stimulate the main narrative of the interviewee. This special form of interview is characterized above all by the fact that the course of the interview is completely open and the interviewee is given enough time to talk about particularly decisive points in his life. That is why one often speaks of a narrative interview. The aim is to create an offhand narrative, while the narrator must not be interrupted and which he ends himself. A special feature here is that, if possible, only narration should be given, but not evaluated or argued. The different types of lecture (narration, evaluation, argumentation) are differentiated in the later analysis of the interview, whereby the narration is primarily of interest for the interpretation. The end of the coffin count is signaled by a coda, such as B. "That's actually it.", "That would be the current status."

In the narrative questionnaire that follows, certain approaches to the narration that may not have been carried out or have only been inadequately carried out can be taken up by the interviewer by asking the interviewer to tell again.

In contrast to other qualitative interviews, the narrative interview does not serve the purpose of testing previously established hypotheses with the help of the interview. Instead, the interview is interpreted using text-hermeneutic methods and hypotheses are derived from it.

Phases of a narrative interview

The narrative interview can be divided into five phases:

  1. Explanation phase: The respondent is told that this is not a question-and-answer interview, but rather he tells and the interviewer will listen carefully. (If necessary, the interviewer asks if he is allowed to record the conversation and explains that it will later be anonymized for data protection purposes.)
  2. Introduction: The interviewer explains which aspect he is particularly interested in, as the interviewee will not be able to describe his entire life down to the smallest detail. He asks the introductory question. → Request to tell
  3. Narrative phase: the interviewee continues to tell until he finishes the narration himself. The interviewer must take breaks.
  4. Inquiry phase: If something remains unclear, the interviewer can inquire now. In addition, he can address topics that he wrote down on his interview guide, but which have not yet been discussed.
  5. Balance sheet: Interviewers and interviewees can talk about the course of the interview. It was often the first time for the respondent that he took part in a narrative interview and he would like to share his experiences.

The principles of the narrative interview were transferred to professional educational, advisory and social action and a biographical-narrative conversation was developed.

literature

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Küsters 2009, p. 18.