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.
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