“자료가 스스로 말하게 하라”

“Let the data reveal itself”: Narrative Inquiry as Qualitative Research

The purpose of this study is to introduce narrative inquiry as one of the qualitative research methods. Narrative inquiry has gradually evolved from general qualitative research. Narrative inquiry has touched almost every discipline, including literature, anthropology, psychology, sociology, and education. In addition, narrative inquiry is being used increasingly in research on counseling because of the view that humans are natural storytellers. In an effort to find the meaning of our lives, individuals create stories wherein they can see themselves in the context of a narrative. Therefore, narrative theorists assert that the stories we tell not only reflect our reality but, through our stories, we create our reality. An in-depth, semi-structured interview format is used as the primary data gathering technique. Especially, narrative inquiry employs an important strategy: ‘let the data reveal itself.’Letting the data reveal itself means that this inquiry is conducted with the assumptions of the ‘naturalistic paradigm.’The naturalistic paradigm is characterized by the following features: research in the natural setting and humans as the primary datagathering instruments. Thus, the narrative inquiry is always concerned with the search for meaning in people’s lives. However, the limitation of this study is the fact that I did not provide practical examples in relation to narrative inquiry. This means that I strive to introduce and obtain rich descriptions of the narrative inquiry. I believe that this narrative inquiry may help the researcher and readers to more fully understand people’s individual lives and experiences.