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Articles

The problem with truth in qualitative interviews: reflections from a narrative perspective

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Pages 125-140 | Received 17 Nov 2008, Accepted 03 Feb 2009, Published online: 26 May 2009
 

Abstract

This paper considers the narrative complexity of the telling–listening process that unfolds in qualitative interviews in sport and exercise sciences. Acknowledging the narrative complexity of memory itself, it critiques the perhaps implicit assumption in many researchers’ minds that interviewees’ responses to interviewers’ questions are to be taken as ‘the truth’ in some simple, straightforward manner. By the same token, it concludes by arguing that truth is ultimately no less problematic an issue in quantitative research than it is in qualitative research, merely problematic in a different way.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

Notes

1. This project is funded by The Nuffield Foundation Small Grants Scheme.

2. Within narrative research, not all scholars adhere to this viewpoint. They are cautious of assertions that ‘the identity is a narrative’, or ‘the narrative is identity’ and indeed problematise such claims (see Smith and Sparkes Citation2006, for further elaboration). For example, Eakin (Citation1999) proposes that the notion of narrative being us, being our identity is unlikely. He argues that if we are to accept an expanded notion of selves and identities which incorporate neural, psychological, social and cultural self‐experience, then the ability of a story to stand for all that we believe in is doubtful.

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