Composite narrative case studies are a relatively novel technique to combine multiple data points into a single vignette. This method offers an accessible option for the presentation of research findings that can engage diverse audiences. Findings presented in this manner honor qualitative commitments to preserve rich, complex, and situated…

This case study is based on a research project about the disciplinary effects on grading; that is, how the system of assigning and receiving grades on courses and assignments affects the behavior of students, instructors, and university administrators alike. This research was undertaken using autoethnography as our main method. The case study…

This case draws on the author's doctoral studies about practitioners' narratives of poverty in the early years. The case discusses how focus groups provide a useful way of exploring early years practitioners' (EY practitioners) understandings of child poverty. The research was based in two Sure Start Children Centres with onsite Nursery Schools…

As leader for an MSc Nursing module titled 'Teaching, Learning and Leadership', I wanted to facilitate international students in their reflection of learning across this module. Ultimately though, I wished to capture the degree to which education could have a transformative impact on the personal and professional development of my students by…

We make sense of experiences of our own and others through different forms of stories -- movies, TV dramas, documentaries, books, songs, as well as stories that are told and re-told within our families and cultures. Our experiences are fragmented and happen in different places over the course of our lives. By putting stories together in a plot, we…

This case explores the use of feminist memory work with working-class women social science students, who narrated and interpreted what helped and hindered them to study at university. Gender and class sensitive, this method involves participants writing stories and then narrating them to other group members who collectively analyze the body of…

Digital stories are short, personal multimedia presentations created through the capture of image (still and/or video), which the creator then edits on a computer with video-editing software to include a spoken narrative. This case adds to the very new move to reconceptualise the digital story by positing it as a useful research method that…

Collaborative research aimed at building local capacity is a complex, contested, time-consuming, and at the same time immensely rewarding experience. The clash of different research cultures, managerial approaches, and values involved in conducting and delivering research is inevitable. Collaborative research requires support structures on…

Intrigued by a conversation with a front-line practitioner at a drop-in center for homeless youth, I became interested in the stories of homeless youth in special education. In my search for a suitable method to capture their educational narratives, I learned about "direct scribing." This case study is an account of direct scribing.…

This case study is in process, begun in 2008, in which I am currently collecting data for an authorized biography. It outlines what has recently been a shift in the role of researchers, especially during interviews, from one of structured questioner to a more collaborative role, that of conversational partner. Data collection methods are varied…

In 2010, a PhD scholarship afforded me an interruption from my teaching role in UK Further Education (FE). Because of my interests in enhancing teaching and learning, I chose to investigate the emotional aspects of lesson observations. Previous studies focused on lesson observations within schools or universities, but my research centred…

Dating violence is a major public health concern, with high prevalence on college campuses. Although traditional quantitative methodology has helped researchers understand important risk factors, correlates, and predictors of dating violence and its consequences, mixed-methodological approaches--used in this chapter to refer to both content…

In 2012, I began a life history research dissertation examining the lives of three Black art teachers in order to understand how they conceptualize and reconcile their social and professional identities as Black/artist/teacher. As a constructivist researcher, my goal was to understand the multiple social constructions of meaning of this group,…

In my PhD research, I explore the reflective schooling experiences of recently graduated First Nations students in New Brunswick (Canada) provincial schools. Improving educational experiences and academic outcomes for First Nations students is currently considered a priority across Canada; however, most previous research focuses on quantitative…

The numbers of Chinese teenagers studying abroad have dramatically increased since the late 1990s, and this phenomenon has received significant attention from researchers and policymakers alike. There is substantial consensus about its proximate causes -- the recent changes in the higher education landscape and the labour market in China and…