Qualitative Methods II: Developing Innovative Qualitative Approaches in Research on Reading and Health

This chapter covers innovative qualitative methods which have sought to capture the lived experience of reading. Philip Davis, Josie Billington, Grace Farrington, and Fiona Magee show the potential for accessing individual, subjective responses to literary reading—especially ‘breakthrough’ moments where readers break out of default habits of thought—using video-recorded data of reading group sessions and video-assisted interviews. Mette Steenberg demonstrates her use of the micro-phenomenological interview to elicit the ‘felt sense’ and cognitive processes of reading. Thor Magnus Tangeraas describes his investigation of life-changing encounters with literary works through an interview method, inspired by narrative inquiry and the dialogic method of shared reading, which he calls ‘intimate reading’; and Kelda Green discusses the methods she has evolved of tracing the effects on psychological health of private reading, combining personal diaries with face-to-face interviews.