Honoring Student “Voice” in Investigating Student Identity Development in a Narrative Study: A Methodological and Analytical Example

• Authors: Deborah Lees , André Van Zyl

Abstracts

EN

Multiple, interrelated narrative methods were employed in a doctoral study purposed to investigate the student identity development of seven first-year participants. This approach provided them with multiple opportunities to convey their unique first-year experiences and revealed rich understandings of how they constructed their identities at a private higher education provider in Johannesburg, South Africa. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that fostering the trust of participants ensured the formation of rich biographical narrative portraits through multiple narrative-type collection methods and forms of analyses, resulting in rich tapestries of personal experience, which were constitutive of their identity formation. Each participant’s narratives revealed their particularities, complexities, and unique experiences of their first year. Although each participant experienced their first year of study very differently, this article weaves in the first-year experiences of one person into its fabric. The narrations of Kondwani (pseudonym), a Zambian student, are used to illustrate how her voice emerged and was held in a trustful research relationship. Her case is representative of all the participants in that it is an exemplar to illustrate the richness of the individual narratives gleaned from carefully chosen methods and forms of analysis that were employed in the study.

Keywords

EN

First-Year Experience; Student Identity Construction; Narrative Inquiry; Narrative Methods; Student Voice

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Journal: Qualitative Sociology Review
• Year: 2022
• Volume: 18
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 28-49

Dates

published

2022

Contributors

author

Deborah Lees

• Torrens University, Australia

• https://orcid.org/0000000226795863

author

André Van Zyl

• University of Johannesburg, South Africa

• https://orcid.org/0000000295681667

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Identifiers

DOI

10.18778/1733-8077.18.1.02

Biblioteka Nauki

2106871