Storytelling Toolkit

Our Scientific Point of Reference

• Health Belief Model

  • This model assumes that a person is more likely to engage in behavior change when they have a high perceived severity and susceptibility of the disease. Also, the person establishes a balance between the perceived barriers for achieving the desired behavior and the benefits seem favorable. The four constructs of this model include the perceived threat and net benefits of treatment including perceived susceptibility, disease severity, benefits of treatment, and barriers.

• Slater Model of Narrative Communication

  • Through our past work, we have learned that narrative communication has the potential to bridge cognitive resistance about a health condition or concept through achieving absorption in the story line (transportation) and identification with the characters (homophily) in the story. This process is parallel to peer-to-peer communication. Thus the influential effect of the stories on behavior change is connected to personal relevance, increased risk perception, increased self-efficacy, and transportation into the narrative.

Developing the Interview Guide 

• Once you decide on the above, the questions that you want to ask will start to form

• Make sure the guide is just that… a guide. Develop concrete questions but understand that the “interview” is a two-way dialogue

• The questions should be developed in a way that elicit a “story” or “message” Avoid asking “yes” or “no” questions. 

  Example: Not: “Do you think research is important?” But rather: “Why do you feel that research is/isn’t important?” 
  Recruitment of ‘storytellers’ 

Recruitment of ‘Storytellers’ 

Community-Engaged -> Focus groups with community organizations

• Partnering with community organizations (specifically in the communities/audience you are trying to reach) will be a great asset to your recruitment efforts

• Focus-group style sessions would require one facilitator and ideally two note-takers (one to take written notes on participant stories/opinions, and one to take notes on how other people in the group react to other people’s answers)

  The focus group will be facilitated using a more general/condensed version of your interview guide (you might even find that some people’s answers and conversations will bring about new questions that you wish to add to your interview guide)

  The questions will be asked to the group for an open discussion and dialogue. The facilitator may choose to ask follow-up questions based on the discussion but should still keep a structure, not let the discussion get too far off track, and know when to move on to the next topic/question. The facilitator should also try and refrain from participating in the discussion, as to avoid persuading or influencing any of their responses.

  Once the focus-group has concluded, debrief with your team to discuss potential “storytellers” and call back the participants you choose for the formal video-recorded interview.

Identifying key stakeholders through community organizations 

• If hosting focus groups is not an option for you, try and still utilize community-based organization to assist you in recruiting storytellers. You might want to interview more people with this option, as you will essentially be interviewing them blindly, with no prior form of contact. It would be better to have too many interviews with a few not-so-great interviews, then only a few interviews and not enough content to choose from. 

Capturing the Story

Understand that most people might be intimidated at first, being video recorded and “put on the spot” 

Start by easing into the interview. Ask them about themselves, their day…small talk

• The interview will begin formally when you ask them to introduce themselves. Let them know they do not have to use their real names if they don’t want to and they can share as much or as little about themselves as they wish.

• Once you begin going through your guide, make it feel more like a conversation than an interview. This will allow the participant to feel less intimidated, and will more likely get genuine responses that come naturally.

  Understand that a participants answers may bring out more follow-up questions that will change from interview to interview and it is okay to go off-script

Technical Aspects

If you have a budget for it, purchase good quality equipment but understand that you can still capture/create a good quality image with minimal equipment.

• SLDR camera, LED lights (two minimum), lavaliere microphone or a boom mic that hangs over participant’s head but out of the camera frame, headphones to monitor audio throughout interview, a backdrop if possible (but not necessary).

• Location: If you have access to LED lights, find a room with minimal natural light, that way you can use your LED lights to create the lighting you want. If you don’t have LED lights, a room with good natural light would work best. 

• Advise participants to avoid wearing clothing with busy patterns or logos

• If possible, two cameras make for a more professional looking video. One set up at a more zoomed out frame, one set up more zoomed in. While editing, this will give you room to edit out any audio with a more natural look by simply switching camera angles. 

• Make sure you have SD disks and hard drives big enough to store all of your footage

The Review Process

• If available, send the audio of your completed interviews to a transcriptionist

  Have your interviews transcribed with timestamps every minute 

• You’ll use these transcripts to more easily identify your key themes/messages 

• Qualitative Analysis

  Thematic Analysis 

The Editing Process

• You will need some type of editing software (iMovie, Premiere Pro, Final Cut…)

• You’ll start but first cutting out the interviewers voice

• Decide on the style of video (I.e. one storyteller per video, multiple storytellers, short videos, long videos...)

• Cut out/separate themes into short clips

• Your finished product will want to be a video that is short enough in length that people will watch the entire thing without losing interest but long enough to where it will allow a message/story to come through 

COVID-19 / Virtual Storytelling 

• During these times of social distancing and remote work/learning, our Storytelling process has had to adapt to this new ‘virtual normal’. We have recently found success in interview conducted and recorded via ZOOM. 

• You might have to guide your participant into an area of their house with good lighting and minimal audio distractions

• The rest of the process stays the same