Child Life Certification Practice Test 2025 - Free Child Life Practice Questions and Study Guide

The method that focuses on narrative data collection is qualitative methods. These approaches prioritize understanding human experiences, thoughts, and feelings through descriptive data rather than numerical values. Qualitative methods often employ techniques like interviews, focus groups, and open-ended surveys, which yield rich, detailed accounts. This narrative data helps researchers capture the complexities of individual experiences and provides context to the findings, making it particularly valuable in fields like child life, where understanding the emotional and psychological state of children and families is crucial.

Quantitative methods, in contrast, are centered on numerical data and statistical analysis, which do not capture the richness of personal narratives. Meta-analysis compiles results from multiple studies using statistical techniques to determine overarching patterns or effects, while descriptive statistics summarize data sets with numerical summaries, which also lack the depth of narrative insights. Therefore, qualitative methods are the clear choice for focusing on narrative data collection.