Methodological meditations on producing rich narrative data

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the methodological implications of producing rich narrative data about higher education at the meso-level. While micro- and macro-level higher education studies often miss out on the nuances of the practices that happen in between, meso-level research straddles these levels, often bringing both ‘structuralist’ and ‘agentic’ tensions into interplay. The chapter highlights the importance of the academic ‘workgroup’ as a unit of analysis in understanding the interplay between the micro-level of individuals in academia and the macro-levels of the university and the higher education sector. The study investigated the practices of a ‘workgroup’ of academics who engaged in a common project over a period of three years. Researching how academics make meaning of their practices requires the use of alternative methodologies which are relatively under-utilised in higher education. The methodologies and iterative data production strategies used in the study are discussed in the chapter, including the processes of grounded open coding and segmentation of the data, as well as the levels of discourse analysis. Finally the chapter provides some reflections on the data analysis process, highlighting the challenges for data production when conducting a meso-level analysis.

Citation

Jacobs, C. (2014), "Methodological meditations on producing rich narrative data", Theory and Method in Higher Education Research II (International Perspectives on Higher Education Research, Vol. 10), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 63-81. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3628(2014)0000010009