Tell me a Story –A way to Knowledge

A narrative or a story (and these terms are synonyms) is a fundamental way of understanding our environment and relationships in it and thus it is a key feature of sound research whatever methodological approach has been taken. The skills of story telling are important in both qualitative or interpretive and quantitative research. But it comes into its own in qualitative research where story telling especially as it appears in case studies and action research is of prime importance. In quantitative research a story or narrative is also required to contextualize the work. The argument developed in this paper balances the idea that numerical analysis underpins the most powerful research paradigms.