Factional stories: Creating a methodological space for collaborative reflection and inquiry in music education research

Stories have been one means by which qualitative researchers have attempted to engage participants and construct, analyze and present data or findings in a meaningful way. In this article, I look at the impetus for, and potentials of crafting and sharing researcher-written factional stories with research participants as a means to generate rich, meaningful data, and facilitate collaborative inquiry. Factional stories may be understood as a bricolage of previously collected data, analyses and fictive elements, combining research participants’ and researcher voices and presented as a short, first-person story. Through the use of factional stories in my own research study as illustration, I examine how factional stories may create a methodological space, within which participants and researcher may collaboratively construct meaning and engage in reflection, negotiation and inquiry. This article suggests that as a heuristic methodological tool, factional stories may be a particularly appropriate methodological means to attend to the complexity so often characteristic of teaching and learning music.