Narrative inquiry for beginners: A practical guide for health professions education researchers

Narrative inquiry (NI) is a rich methodological approach centered around the analysis of stories. While NI has great value within health professions education research, it may be overwhelming for novice researchers (or those new to NI) to employ in practice. This article draws from the first author's doctoral study experiences alongside the supervisors (i.e., co-authors). By highlighting our decision-making processes, we aim to encourage researchers to consider using NI within their research contexts. This work also illustrates the value of NI within health professions education research. We discuss the main challenges we faced when using NI including the diversity of NI conceptualizations, the different definitions of a story, and the multitude of possibilities to approach data analysis. We then outline the approach we took to analyze narrative data (re-storying, narrative synthesis, and thematic analysis) and describe the process used to visually represent the data as journey maps, inspired by Kurt Vonnegut's "Cinderella" story. In doing so, we seek to demonstrate the potential for NI approaches to enrich the diversity, breadth, and depth of health professions education research and, by extension, influence educational practice.