The Use of Storytelling in Online Relationship Development

Summary of the PhD Research Project

Aim
The research project aims to investigate how story and storytelling can be used to facilitate relationship development between participants in online groups.

Focus
The focus is the use of narrative (also referred to as story) because it potentially offers a useful catalyst in developing online relationships. It provides an accessible form for developing inclusiveness, deepening rapport and for people to present aspects of themselves in an environment lacking in human presence. The overall goal of the project is to develop some practical processes and techniques that are useful in building and maintaining relationships between members in online groups. The study group will also explore other areas of online facilitation throughout the research process including areas of trust, power, conflict, inclusion, community, motivation, best practice, metaphor, learning, process and system design, conferencing, tools and culture.

Method
The method of co-operative inquiry will be used within a participative approach. Co-operative inquiry produces data that has a strong grounding in participant experience and multiple perspectives of phenomena. Co-operative inquiry also aligns strongly with facilitator values of equality, shared decision-making, equal opportunity, power sharing and personal responsibility.

Plan
The research happens in two stages. An initial 6-week pilot investigated agreed themes of interest within the area of the research question. This pilot stage has a particular focus on how we can research cooperatively together and we tried a few things out to see if they are useful ways to research. At the end of this pilot stage, we conducted an After Action Review to see what has worked well for us and where our energy is for investigating further in more depth. The second stage of the research follows through several cycles of planning, action and reflection. The planning involves discussion about our choice of focus or topic and what type of inquiry we are applying. In the action phase we explore, in experience and action, aspects of the inquiry. The reflection phase reviews what has been experienced and sometimes we chose to modify our topic in light of making new sense of the data we collected. At the end of the cycles we completed a reflection phase for pulling the threads together, clarifying outcomes and deciding on dissemination of what we learnt.

The initial 6-week pilot commenced on 30 September 2005.

Benefits

• This research forwards our profession by contributing in-depth research into the emerging area of online group work.
• We have generated and tested some practical approaches, methods and techniques to facilitate online relationships.
• We investigated the usefulness of several research methods for investigating our individual and group experience online (such as cooperative inquiry, narrative inquiry, sociometric processing and others that emerged from our group process).
• Through fully immersing ourselves in the research topic we tapped into the collective wisdom and synergies of our research group.
• Through conscious attention to the differing perspectives of our experience we were able to better understand many of the difficulties faced in online groups.
• We have learnt from one another and have built stronger peer networks.

Click here to go to the PhD research website - www.onlinestory.net.

Researcher Contact Details: Stephen Thorpe, PhD Student, School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand.
Phone: +649 921-9999 extension 8953.

Project Supervisor Contact Details: Dr. Philip Carter, Senior Lecturer, School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand.
Phone: +64 9 921-9999 extension 5300.

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