Free interpretation analysis: a multidimensional methodology for analysis of qualitative data in Science Education

Abstract:

Free Interpretation Analysis (FIA) is an analytical and dialogical approach in science education. It integrates the interpretation of qualitative data with reflective strategies anchored in the theoretical framework, educational praxis, and the knowledge accumulated by the researcher. Its analytical contours address the research assumptions, articulating discoveries from data analysis. FIA is grounded in four interdependent axes — Biographization, Reflective Strategies, Academic Language, and Analytical Elements — which enable the understanding of intertwined processes in research and foster intense dialogue between researcher and participants. The interaction between these axes and the theoretical framework allows the emergence of conceptual categories based on the researcher’s practical experience. The text presents FIA’s foundations, exemplifies its application, discusses limitations, and compares it to established qualitative methodologies. FIA contributes to science education research by offering an innovative approach to understanding complex phenomena in contexts of scientific denialism, broadening reality comprehension through the researcher’s professional experience.

Keywords:
scientific education; methodological approach; data analysis; research and education

Resumo

A Análise de Livre Interpretação (ALI) constitui uma abordagem analítica e dialógica no âmbito da educação científica, que integra a interpretação de dados qualitativos com estratégias reflexivas, ancoradas no referencial teórico, na prática educacional e no conhecimento acumulado pelo pesquisador. Seus contornos analíticos respondem a pressupostos da pesquisa, articulando descobertas da análise de dados. A ALI se baseia em quatro eixos — biografização, estratégias, linguagem acadêmica e elementos da análise — que permitem compreender processos entrelaçados na pesquisa e um diálogo intenso entre pesquisador e participantes. Esses eixos interagem com o referencial teórico, gerando categorias baseadas na prática do pesquisador. O texto apresenta os fundamentos e exemplifica a aplicação da ALI, discutindo suas limitações e a compara com metodologias consolidadas. Ela contribui para pesquisas em educação científica, oferecendo uma abordagem inovadora para a compreensão de fenômenos complexos em contextos de negacionismo científico.

Palavras-chave
educação científica; abordagem metodológica; análise dos dados; pesquisa e educação

Freedom, freedom, spread the wings over ourselves

The freedom to be who one can be as a researcher has brought us to this point. This feeling — and the cause it represents — runs through us in the defense of a research practice that is free: one that makes us more ethical, more responsible, and less bound by the constraints that so often entangle the analytical process. Such constraints may lead to discouragement, suffering, and, too often, the abandonment of research altogether. According to the Dictionary of Philosophy, in a general sense, the term liberty refers to the condition of someone or something that is free, possessing the capacity to act on its own, self-determination, independence, and autonomy. It is based on these ideals that Free Interpretation Analysis (FIA) is established. Although this study does not adopt a rigidly structured or hierarchical analytical framework, it seeks to allow analytical categories and structures to emerge from critical reflections — particularly regarding the exercise of freedom within the research process. In this context, interpretative freedom is understood as the researcher’s ability to engage in critical dialogue with the data, articulating theory and practice in an ethical and creative manner, without reliance on predefined categories (Gadamer, 2004). This attempt opens space for other possibilities that highlight the marks of singularities, peculiarities, and authorial dimensions, which become identifiable when the researcher feels free, secure, and theoretically supported, enabling analyses that lend coherence and solidity to the discourse directed at the fabric of the research object and its assumptions.

Indeed, we consider that any initiative to systematize a concept of freedom inevitably implies its constricting refinement, which may not fully convey its meaning. And here lies our greatest challenge in overcoming certain operational elements in research on everyday life. Specifically, our goal is to provoke our analyses and invoke the Academy to reflect and act within new parameters that broaden perspectives and engage with subjectivities. However, this often comes at a high cost. Introducing new methodological proposals onto the stage generates responses, stimulates thoughts, especially because analyses are connected to methodological forms that rely on categories, structures, classifications, regulations, and ordering. This was learned to be done within a formal system that can limit the reflection and analysis of other potentials of research in its structure, composition, organization, originality, dissemination, and sharing of its findings.

We emphasize that the freedom to think, sense, reflect, analyze, and write expresses what we intend in Free Interpretation Analysis (FIA). This positions researchers in education and teaching in dialogue with alternative theoretical and methodological possibilities, opening new pathways. Such journeys involve perspectives that move beyond previously established research schematizations and discourses.

Unlike the intention of closing the issue with a single proposal for the systematization of FIA, we aim to provoke reflection and foster debate on interpretative freedom in research — the place it occupies and its significance as an emerging methodological approach. This form of inquiry grants coherence, confidence, and fluidity to the analytical process, as it recognizes the researcher as fully capable of engaging in critical and autonomous interpretation. In this way, we deepen our gaze and the meanings attributed to analyses that point to the complex networks of knowledge and emotions woven into the findings of methodological exploration (Morin, 1990, 1994; Villegas; Gonzáles, 2021).

In Certeau (1994, 1996), we can understand that a thorough and refined analysis of reality and everyday practices is suggested to be limited not only to contents and methodologies, but also to the integration of all types of knowledge and absences, understood in the forms of creation. The arts of doing, which are freedoms amidst the weaving and sharing of reflections on the surveys carried out in the immersion of everyday life, are highlighted. This phenomenon occurs in a way that interprets in the invisibility of practices as found in readings that enable the denaturalization of important phenomena, contradicting universally dictated models. The subtle elements are thus introduced into the discussion, and subsequently placed under debate.

Still inspired by the author’s reading, we can see that the harmonious architecture of the text is part of the researcher’s practice, who works on a previously thought out and reflected situation or fact, aiming to transform it into an analysis articulated between theory and the field in an interdisciplinary framework. The didactic character of the analysis must be explicit in the research writing. FIA is dedicated to this. The structure of the text is crucial, as is the perceptibility of the axioms. The legitimacy of the argument is supported by a reference point that lends credibility to the ideas in an action of content over form, based on construction and deconstruction, which is part of everyday research. Therefore, the text is the place of discourse, the delimitation of a spatial and temporal framework to be analyzed (Certeau, 1982).

As one of the reflections provoked here, we return to one of the first freedoms of research: the choices. In scientific research, we make choices at various points along the way. Each choice must be justified, based on theoretical-methodological arguments, which should reflect as closely as possible the portrait of the investigated reality, as well as consider ethical responsibility, researcher autonomy, and the sovereignty of the research field, so that we can advance in our studies.

Choices in qualitative scientific research must be carefully considered by those who make them and are never entirely impartial. For the understanding of the object of study, the researcher, who invariably becomes the writer of the entire constitutive process of their investigation, articulates knowledge and new discoveries based on the options that unfold before them.

Conducting research involves dedicating exceptional attention and carefully considering what we observe and hear. Erickson (2012) argues that re-searching means repeatedly, and recursively, seeking data that either support or refute initial assumptions. Fundamental questions in formulating data collection strategies include considering where, how, and with whom we need to seek information. Addressing these questions is essential for gathering evidence to support the assertions we wish to make in response to the main research questions outlined in the study. However, rigor should not be present exclusively in the data collection stage but especially in the methodology of data analysis, particularly in qualitative research.

Thus, Free Interpretation Analysis (FIA) emerges in response to requests from colleagues, gaining support through the collective reflections of a group of faculty members from the Graduate Program in Science Education at the Federal Institute of Rio de Janeiro (IFRJ), Nilópolis campus. It has been further developed through the discussions, reflections, and collaborative practices of the research group Science, Learning, Teacher Education, and Teaching (CAFE), to which this study is affiliated.

In fact, from the initial reading of the article describing FIA (Anjos; Rôças; Pereira, 2019) to the writing of the present text, we have participated in research group meetings, engaged in readings, and undertaken numerous discussions on how to operationalize this empowering methodology for the analysis of qualitative data in research. Driving forces have led us to write this third essay, which aims to propose possible methodological routes that deepen and clarify the trajectory of FIA. The impetus for this essay stems from various requests made by researchers who had engaged with the methodology, from questions raised during lectures on FIA, and from ongoing exchanges within the research group. More specifically, however, it is grounded in a doctoral study focused on teacher protagonism in continuing education, which provided us with valuable discussions and insights that informed key definitions and clarifications (Nascimento, 2023).

FIA assumes analytical contours that support the resolution of research questions and hypotheses by articulating knowledge and discoveries based on the insights found during data analysis. Inferences are complemented by searches and exploration conducted both within the theoretical realm and within the autonomy of the field to arrive at an answer. It is in this sense that FIA has proven to be an empowering methodology for data analysis, in which the researcher’s experiential empiricism is nourished by theoretical contributions that enrich the theoretical, methodological, and analytical compendium of reading and findings produced within the research field.

The FIA has its roots in research conducted in the field of science education, yet it is flexible enough to be adopted, discussed, and expanded upon in various knowledge domains. In the current context, characterized by the emergence of denialism and the dissemination of fake news, it is crucial to reinforce the importance of education-grounded science, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary perspectives (Catarino; Reis, 2021). Faced with the weaknesses of this scenario, it is necessary not only to promote spaces for reflection on knowledge production in the field of science education but also to assume the responsibility of promoting a more engaged approach to the dissemination of established scientific knowledge.

FIA: methodology or method?

It is important to distinguish between methodology and method, as they have distinct scopes. Methodology refers to the strategic approach through which the analysis of your research occurs. The method refers to the steps taken during the analysis, ensuring the achievement of the objectives of research. Therefore, Free Interpretation Analysis (FIA) is configured as a methodology, delineated by the paradigm of the qualitative approach, whose method is designed to generate credible and representative data and analyses of the studied reality ( Triviños, 2008).

It represents a proposal for the analysis of qualitative data that allows for dialogical freedom in interpreting these data, using reflexive and interpretative strategies. This approach prioritizes a communion between the researcher’s perspective and thinking, expanded by readings and studies, with what was raised and experienced in the research field. Although the FIA is not limited to pre-established stages, in response to the requests of our interlocutors, we seek to establish not a method, but a starting point for those interested in the methodology. Not that the method cannot exist, but it can be defined by the researcher in their journey and autonomy gained through confidence in their learning, experience, and mastery of their inquiries united with their knowledge. For this reason, the FIA transcends the boundaries of research in science education, being able to be embraced by other fields of the human and social sciences.

According to Najmanovich (2003), we need to subvert the yoke of methodological spell. And it is in this tendency that FIA is configured not as a subversion, but rather as a new version that particularly encompasses teacher-researchers. The author explains that

Nowadays, after several centuries under the empire of method, still hypnotized by the modern discourse, we are beginning — albeit timidly — to shake off the yoke of this methodical spell, to navigate the seas of uncertainty and creativity. But the price we must pay for this includes renouncing the illusion of guaranteed and absolute knowledge. This is not a simple task; on the contrary, it requires accepting our finitude, our limitation, our radical incompleteness in all knowing. Nevertheless, this is the only way to open the doors to invention, imagination, destiny, and difference. In return, through this regenerated space, the possibility of error may enter, but otherwise, we will fear nothing more than the eternal repetition of the same, the already given (Najmanovich, 2003, p. 34, own translation).

It is pertinent to remember that FIA, in its constitutive base, applied in research on science education, is the art of using interpretative and reflexive strategies. Anchored in the epistemological foundations of Bakhtinian discourse analysis (Bakhtin, 2000), the understanding of bricolage proposed by Kincheloe (2007), and the authorial role of the teacher (Nóvoa, 1995), we emphasize the role and importance of the teacher-researcher (Alarcão, 2004) guided by the understandings of ethics and responsibility of Morin (1990, 1994) and Certeau (1994, 1996).

Hence, FIA is a methodology that incorporates multiple procedures in the analysis process to achieve research outcomes, respecting the centrality of the teacher-researcher’s experience throughout the journey, supported by their theoretical immersion. For interpreting information, the FIA method is consistent and well-aligned with data collection instruments that involve observation, active participation, and narratives (common in qualitative research). Although FIA emerges from qualitative research, with applications in document analysis, interviews, (auto)biographies, or other data collection instruments, there are no limitations to its use in interpreting responses from mixed or open-ended questionnaires.

In this process, FIA is constituted by the constant reinterpretation of observed and/ or narrated facts, collected data, and what was seen, heard, said, and expressed in the field of research. As such, in FIA, the researcher’s presumed neutrality becomes secondary, as the dialogue and understanding of field findings also depend on the meaning the researcher, as an observer-listener, has gathered. It involves their attentive listening and their interpretation of gestures, intentions, and speech.

The collected information and reinterpretation of responses are re-signified by the researcher-writer, who, in their free interpretation, feels secure and supported by knowing they have been rigorous, ethical, guided, and confident in their analyses. The researcher becomes a considered writer because FIA relies on narratives during the description and analysis of data while considering the theoretical framework at hand. It is addressed to researchers from any field of knowledge who choose this methodological path, but especially to those who, immersed in their practices, reconsider and reflect upon their actions (Alarcão, 2004). In this sense, FIA is grounded in the ethical dimension of the researcher, who will study the subjectivity, opinions, perspectives, and realities of the research subjects, collaboratively constructing their interpretation.

Drawing on Najmanovich’s (2003) reflections, breaking away from the comfort of familiar methodologies and methods is no simple task. Moreover, it is challenging, amid the methodological (mis)directions of the scientific process, to propose an analytical methodology that embraces dialogic freedom in data interpretation and the free observation of facts. This does not entail renouncing well-established and successful methods of analysis, nor does it imply an outright rejection of the academic-scientific instruments and methodological procedures widely employed in research. Rather, it is a matter of opening oneself to the multiplicity of possible approaches to data analysis that FIA affords.

Without seeking systematization and methodological constraints, we identify that by privileging an analysis structure that surpasses deterministic and exhaustive models and by using a dialogical interpretation that contributes to reflections beyond the sample structure, FIA is primarily interested in the peculiarities that emerge along the development of the research, translating them according to the understanding of the context in which the investigation is embedded.

FIA is methodological in its competence for data writing and strategic as a resource for interpreting the internal logic of understanding the data. However, it is not mechanical, as it does not subject the researcher to rigid methodological systematizations. Instead, it is a living methodology, constructed reflectively by the researcher conducting the analysis. It is an open construction involving everyone who dedicates themselves to researchwithdiligence,patience,determination,firmness,resolution,andperseverance. Drawing on the collected data, the researchers will engage in interpretation, reflection, and reinterpretation, immersing themselves in the data and allowing the analysis to mature, writing with freedom and responsibility, supported by a theory embedded in their practice.

An essay, not a proposal for systematization

As researchers investigating FIA, we have yet to attain a definitive understanding of the need to develop a single analytical device for the data, as this contradicts the fundamental principle of this analysis methodology. However, considering feedback and suggestions received, it has been determined that proposing a structure based on multidimensional axes is a viable undertaking, that were previously tested in Nascimento’s (2023) PhD thesis. These axes allow for the exploration and analysis of research data from any entry point. The inclusion or exclusion of new axes in the analysis matrix can be determined by the object and objectives of the research, as well as the theoretical framework and approach adopted by the researcher. Therefore, the FIA combines techniques of biographization and legitimate narrative and is structured around four interdependent multidimensional axes, as described in figure 1: Biographization, Reflexive Strategies, Academic Language, and Elements of Analysis.

Figure 1
The Free Interpretation Analysis (FIA) multidimensional axes

The Biographization axis is based on the competence of analysis and writing, grounded in the internal logic of processing the collected data, using personal codes derived from spoken (narrated), read, or heard experiences (Alheit, 2011). Biographization, being harmonious with qualitative research, undoubtedly reproduces the subject’s own discourse about themselves or their lived experiences, guided by the investigative context that positions them as the subject of the research, expressing opinions, describing, explaining, arguing, and presenting their own understanding as research data. Bragança (2018, p. 68, own translation) emphasizes that “[…] narratives, in their various forms of expression — oral, written, visual, videographic — are capable of fostering reflective processes.” Therefore, in the context of this essay, it is understood that the researcher reinterprets the narrative discourse, transforming the data into a biographized text.

In the role of a writer, the researcher conducts the analysis, creatively appropriating everything that has been collected, deeply reflecting on the documented observations, the findings, the collected information, and any other legitimate element that helps clarify the results. Biographized writing, in the assumption of FIA, signifies the reconfigured practice of writing by the researcher, who, through the process of researching-narrating, narrating-researching, creates a dialogical and cyclical movement of reflection.

The Elements of Analysis axis is organized around four essential principles for biographized writing in FIA: (1) freedom; (2) ethics; (3) subjectivity; and (4) legitimate narrative. These concepts are interconnected. Freedom does not imply carelessness with words or textual impoverishment; on the contrary, it means that when crafting a text, the researcher can delve deeply into the essence of what has been narrated, with the freedom to sow words using the seeds that have been presented to them. Regarding ethics, it should be viewed as a fundamental aspect of any research, representing a tacit agreement to uphold the truth of the data in writing. However, it is worth emphasizing that in FIA, ethics is an essential element due to the subjectivity of qualitative data, demanding from the researcher a legitimate narrative of their analysis.

The Reflection Strategies axis grants the researcher a cyclic sequential analysis process based on the actions of interpreting, delving, maturing, and innovating the data. The analysis cycle leads the researcher to (re)interpretations that are eventually revisited through a new immersion, maturation, and innovation of the analyzed data. It proposes a reflection guided by the centrality of the researcher’s experience, supported by a theoretical immersion appropriate to the research question and objectives.

The Academic Language axis is based on the appropriation of a theoretical framework that supports the analysis, reflecting and reverberating the researcher’s experience through language specific to the academic context. In the role of an interpreter, during the phase of findings analysis, the researcher bears the responsibility of translating results competently and reliably, in accordance with the epistemic norms of academia.

As with any interpretive methodology, the FIA presupposes, primarily, a strong sense of ethics and criticism. The researcher analyzes the set of qualitative data with full reflexive freedom, expressing their conclusions or lack thereof in their own writing. They consider their productive singularity as a researcher, while also expanding and enhancing a data analysis format that values the plurality of human knowledge.

The complexity of our experience is not exhausted in the proposition of an analytical device that systematizes the course of FIA. On the contrary, we advocate for the use of a combination of different techniques for analytical purposes, a practice that is not new, as evidenced by Biar, Orton, and Bastos (2021) in their research titled Brazilian research in narrative analysis in times of ‘post-truth’¹. We believe that the complex processes intertwined in the networks created during the research will be guided by the autonomy of the field, combined with the theoretical framework, and may even derive from categories established previously by authors and/or the researcher’s experience. The freedom to not be bound by a specific method seeks not to limit FIA, allowing for creation from the existing context, enabling innovations in analysis, and even the development of new categories.

We argue in favor of this freedom based on the importance of teachers in various sciences better understanding their object of study and their work. They must promote, both in the classroom and in their research, the training of students through the construction of a more coherent view of the sciences, their natures, and the concepts that compose them. More than ever, science teachers need a wide range of skills, information, and technologies, as it is no longer enough to just know science well to teach it today, since ignorance of the nature of science and how it is produced can lead to distortions and the emergence of post-truths and anti-science movements (Catarino; Reis, 2021). Therefore, it is necessary to reinforce important themes already discussed in the literature.

Practical application of Free Interpretation Analysis: An empirical example

To illustrate the FIA’s operationalization, we draw upon the doctoral thesis of Nascimento (2023), which investigated teacher agency in continuing education through interviews with alumni of the Graduate Program in Science Teaching (PROPEC) at IFRJ. The study explored how the professional master’s degree influenced the teacher identity of participants, employing FIA to analyze their narratives. This example highlights the methodology’s capacity to integrate theoretical rigor, reflective depth, and creative innovation, culminating in the development of an innovative continuing education course.

Biographization axis: the researcher conducted a systematic analysis of interview transcripts, identifying core research themes including professional autonomy in teacher development and teacher identity reformulation. To illustrate, participant Maria (pseudonym) stated, “PROPEC enabled me to envision constructing my own teaching trajectory, breaking away from predetermined models”. Using the biographization method, Nascimento (2023) developed the following interpretive synthesis: Through PROPEC, Maria gained autonomy to reconceptualize her teaching practice and progressively reconstruct her professional identity. This narrative reconstruction preserved the authenticity of the original account while situating it within Nóvoa’s (1995) theoretical framework on teacher identity development, thereby ensuring both empirical validity and theoretical rigor in the analysis.

Reflective Strategies: Nascimento’s (2023) analysis exemplified FIA’s cyclical process, involving interpretation, immersion, maturation, and innovation. She iteratively compared narratives, allowing the category of agency as autonomy to emerge organically. This category was refined through continuous dialogue with Schön’s (1983) concept of reflective practice, demonstrating a dynamic interplay between data and theory. The maturation phase involved revisiting data to ensure interpretive depth, while innovation manifested in the creative synthesis of findings into actionable insights. This reflective process enabled Nascimento not only to interpret the data but also to transform it into a framework for practical application, underscoring FIA’s ability to generate innovative perspectives on complex educational phenomena.

Academic language: Nascimento’s (2023) played a pivotal role in translating raw data into robust academic discourse as an interpreter. Each finding was meticulously anchored in theoretical constructs, reflecting a sophisticated engagement with scholarly frameworks. For example, the category agency as autonomy was articulated as follows: Teacher agency emerges as the capacity to exercise autonomy in professional development, critically reflecting on practice and reconstructing professional identity. This formulation demonstrates her ability to interweave empirical data with theoretical insights, ensuring every analytical claim was supported by authoritative references. Her rigorous use of theorists such as Schön (1983), Nóvoa (1995), and Marinas (2007) to contextualize the findings highlights the researcher’s command of academic language, and lends credibility and depth to the analysis. This approach aligns with Bakhtin’s (2000) emphasis on dialogic discourse, in which the researcher’s voice engages with participant narratives and broader academic conversations.

Core Analytical Elements: the thesis was guided by FIA’s central tenets, such as freedom (emerging categories), ethics (fidelity to data), subjectivity (reflexive interpretation), and legitimate narrative (transcript-based). These elements ensured the interpretive process remained flexible yet ethical, balancing creativity with scientific rigor.

The primary contribution of Nascimento’s (2023) application of FIA lies in its transformative impact. Based on her findings, she designed a modular continuing education course, Contemporary Teacher Development, which acknowledges the complexity of teacher identity within social, political, and ideological contexts. Leveraging FIA’s interpretive flexibility, the course empowers teachers to design their own professional learning pathways. Implemented twice with diverse cohorts and validated by experts, it promotes autonomy by allowing participants to select modules aligned with their needs. This innovative application transcends traditional qualitative analysis, as FIA not only interprets data but also translates it into scalable educational interventions. Categories such as formative autonomy and reconstructed teacher identity directly informed the course’s modular structure, validating FIA as an effective methodology for unraveling intricate processes in teacher education.

By capturing the subjective meanings and contextual dimensions of educational, social, and cultural phenomena through open yet thoughtful interpretation, FIA enables rich, nuanced analyses of narratives, practices, and discourse. It is becoming increasingly popular among research groups and institutions worldwide. Notable applications include,

• i. Education: Borges (2024) and Cruz (2022) from the IFSP and Unigranrio, respectively, used the FIA to examine the tensions between educational policies and school experiences.

• ii. Health: Researchers from Unicamp (Silva; Novaes, 2023) employed FIA to explore representations of care and embodiment.

• iii. Social Sciences: Carvalho and Oliveira (2024) applied FIA in hermeneutic approaches to memory and social structure.

• iv. Within the scope of multiculturalism and diversity (Nascimento; Gouvêa, 2020), ALI functioned simultaneously as a theoretical and methodological tool for mapping the thematic trends and referential frameworks of the authors. This application revealed ALI’s dual capacity: to systematically analyze academic output while maintaining critical reflexivity regarding its epistemological foundations.

Operating across distinct models — exploratory (Guedes; Lima, 2024), hybrid (Nascimento; Gouvêa, 2020), and hermeneutic (Gontijo, 2024) — FIA requires methodological rigor in three fundamental dimensions: validation, employing clear protocols to prevent overlap with conventional content analysis; systematization, ensuring traceability of analytical decisions through detailed documentation; and transparency, maintaining the auditability of the interpretive process. As an emerging methodology, its effectiveness rests on pillars of attuned listening to data, contextualized reconstruction of meanings, and critical engagement with the complexity of investigated phenomena. This dialectical nature — which harmonizes interpretive flexibility with rigorous demands — consequently requires dual researcher competencies related to analytical creativity to capture nuances and methodological discipline to substantiate inferences, particularly in studies examining multidimensional social realities.

In dialogue with established qualitative methodologies, FIA stands out for its interpretive flexibility. However, unlike Orlandi’s (1999) discourse analysis, which focuses on discursive structures and power relations, the Free Interpretation Analysis (FIA) centers on the researcher’s subjective narrative, integrating theory and practice dialogically. In contrast to Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis, which is a systematic coding process, FIA emphasizes iterative reflection. Its strength lies in its ability to capture complex subjectivities, foster practical innovation, and upholding an ethically grounded, reflexive approach.

Further considerations

Research that adopts a more libertarian approach in its analyses, inspired by freedom as a pedagogical practice (Freire, 1999), tends to provoke debates and generate discomfort in academic circles, but even this behavior of strangeness is recognized in the history of science. When the Academy, through ad hoc reviewers, demands the elaboration of analytical tools as part of research methodology, it seeks, in addition to important methodological rigor, to contain the libertarian, counter-hegemonic ideal. In contrast, we have undertaken the exercise of adopting a theoretical framework recognized for its weight to legitimize and sustain FIA as a genuine possibility for researchers to take ownership of the new methodological pathways highlighted by Certeau (1994), Morin (1994), Gadamer (2004), and Najmanovich (2001). These pathways broaden dialogue and enact movements within a fabric of freedom, rooted in the complexity of everyday networks that guide how to intervene, evaluate, engage, and break with the austerity of certainties. Thus, doubt is the movement of research.

By engaging with the questions that led us to research in science education, prompted by our daily professional lives, we began a process of self-analysis that revealed the depths of our capacity to construct and deconstruct thoughts and perceptions. This process fulfills the principle of alterity and empathy that guides us in understanding both collective life and individual subjectivities. This fact can be worked on in both qualitative and quali-quantitative analysis. It was based on our research experiences in science education, classrooms, listening, readings, and observations that FIA was born.

In this perspective, the professional modality in the areas of teaching and education plays an important role (Rizzatti et al., 2020), allowing teachers and professionals who work in education, dedicating years to schools and other educational sectors, to identify categories of analysis based on their educational practices. It is this expertise, enhanced through discussions with colleagues, teachers, and research groups from graduate programs, especially those in the professional modality, that has made possible the initial understandings and propositions of FIA as a robust analysis methodology. The continuous interaction with qualitative data from the educational context, combined with reflection on theoretical and practical contributions, allows for a deeper and more contextualized understanding of the challenges and opportunities in the field of science teaching and education.

The figure of the teacher-researcher holds significance for us, considering the birthplace of this methodological proposal. However, FIA is not limited to this specific audience or any exclusive group. We acknowledge that the researcher’s perspective is crucial for organizing, classifying, schematizing, structuring, and interpreting the diverse procedures used in the creative network of movements, processes, attempts, and possibilities that enable freedom in research. Refining and articulating the research findings into words that move dynamically is an art that connects with an analysis that does not disregard ideas liberated from constraints (Anjos; Rôças; Pereira, 2019; Rôças et al., 2020).

Interpretive freedom, defined as the dialectical process of category construction through the interplay between empirical data and theoretical frameworks, represents the foundational principle of FIA. As Gadamer (2004, author’s emphasis) posits, “the authentic ‘art of writing’ lies in its capacity to stimulate the reader’s thinking through ‘productive movement,’ transcending ‘conventional rhetorical or aesthetic devices’ and enabling the creative generation of meanings unconstrained by a priori categories.” However, such interpretive freedom necessitates ethical-methodological rigor, for, as Gadamer (2004, p. 443) cautions, “reaching understanding does not constitute a merely instrumental act or unilateral intentional activity”, but rather a dialogical process that preserves the otherness of data, precluding reductionist or subjectivist readings.

To analyze in a free and authentic way, as proposed by Certeau (1994, 1996), is to allow the researcher to embark on a journey of self-discovery while simultaneously understanding others in the dimension of their experiences and the different meanings of their lives. From this perspective, no research guided by qualitative approaches should be a closed and smooth reflection of reality, given that the multiple layers of connections between the research object and analytical situations are potentially the result of redundancies observed over time and fragmentary traces produced during inquiry.

In this regard, we rely on the singularities that constitute the complexity and the need for this analysis to prioritize subjects in their liberties, understood as complex and embodied individuals. As Najmanovich (2001, p. 93-94, own translation) aptly pointed out, “The subject, from the perspective of complexity sciences, is a ‘heterogeneous unit,’ an emergent organization resulting from the interaction of suborganizations, in which cognition, emotion, and action stand out as forms of interaction between the subject and the world.”

The responsibility of writing in the academic language within research analysis reveals and unveils the composition and articulations used as resources to comprehend the research topic within its context. The Free Interpretation Analysis is a method of creating knowledge that allow us to understand the plurality, connections, and complexity of lived relations and situations. As Najmanovich (2001, p. 94, own translation) told us, “[…] the subject is not a being, a substance, a structure, or a thing but rather a becoming in interactions”. Free Interpretation Analysis seeks its place, delves deeper into dialogues, and embraces new partners, thus making it a living, open, and evolving process.

Therefore, it is this subject — who accesses the multiple senses of life — who writes, observes, records, re-signifies, dialogues, agrees, retorts, creates, and recreates the steps of their trajectory and lived experiences. It is the researcher who studies and understands a set of theories, concepts, thoughts, and ideas that expand analytical narratives, opening possibilities for enhancing the expression and circulation of concepts as threads of our own way of being and of our complex, singular understanding. Ultimately, everything is connected to how we recount what is seen, heard, thought, and felt.

Thus, working with interpretations in a free sense allows us to embrace dimensions of authorship, autonomy, legitimacy, emancipation, and aesthetic plurality within the beauty of freedom. It foregrounds the creative capacity of researchers, enabling them to embrace the limits, unforeseen events, and constraints of their trajectories. In doing so, they record insights through words and interpretations that capture the subtleties of speech, gestures, numbers, silences, and images that inhabit visible discourses and give rise to original reflections through free interpretation.

Requests from colleagues for further clarification on FIA highlight the difficulty that some researchers face when applying a non-systematized method — perhaps a limitation of FIA. However, for researchers capable of engaging in a reflective and in-depth dialogue with their empirical data, this interpretative flexibility represents FIA’s core strength, fostering rich and contextually situated analyses. FIA demands rigorous validation and transparency to uphold its scientific legitimacy, balancing creative freedom with methodological accountability. Thus, FIA establishes itself as a methodology that, while challenging, offers significant contributions to science education research.

In the new paths of the Free Interpretation Analysis, we understand that criticisms and truths are not complete in themselves because they are always subject to unforeseen and unobserved aspects. Thus, the articulations of the research contexts experienced by researchers in the freedom of their analysis highlight their need to constantly acquire knowledge because, as Maturana and Varela (1995) already told us, life is a process of knowledge structured in language, and when we attempt to know knowing, we end up encountering our own being. To know is to open doors and windows to endless possibilities, much like a well that requires us to dig deeper the more we explore.

According to the authors, knowledge of knowledge compels us to adopt an attitude of resisting the temptation of certainty, to recognize that our certainties are not proofs of truth. Free Interpretation Analysis encourages us to engage in this path and dialogue by positioning ourselves as authors, embracing the novelty of our perspectives on the new knowledge we delve into. Seeing ourselves in the role of authors is also an act of courage. This leads to an inescapable ethics that emerges from the consideration of the research field and produces reflexivity, enabling us to view from a broader and collective perspective, as it is the result of the researcher’s relationships with ideas, readings, experiences, and choices.

Writing within FIA adopts an academic form not by chance, but because of sustained inquiry. When recorded, data derived from investigations reveal the relevance that methodology has for society in the production of knowledge in its new paths. Situated within emerging epistemologies, inspired by Santos (2000), FIA can combat the proliferation of cynical reason and reinvent emancipatory paths through a dialectical relationship.

Within Free Interpretation Analysis, we understand what Santos (2000) told us about paradigms being transient and historically constructed. New, plural, and diverse paradigms are continuously being imagined, developed, and lived. Among them is a process of unthinking, that is, rethinking inherited assumptions on these new paradigms, beginning with how we perceive the world, research, and free action, understood as a responsible commitment to authentic, autonomous, and coherent existence aligned with the pursuit of truth. Research, in our understanding, encompasses all of this.

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our gratitude to the Science, Learning, Education, and Teaching Research Group (CAFE) for their invaluable contributions, including debates, intellectual challenges, and reflections, which enriched the discussions at this event. We would also like to thank FAPERJ (Bolsa Cientista do Nosso Estado, project no. 204.155/2024), and IFRJ for making part of the research presented possible, as well as acknowledging the commitment of all members in building a collaborative and innovative academic environment.

This work was carried out with the support of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) in Brazil, through a Level 2 Productivity Grant (process no. 303431/2022-9).

Data Availability Statement

The research data are included within the body of the manuscript.

• 1
  Original title in Portuguese: A pesquisa brasileira em análise de narrativa em tempos de ‘pós-verdade’.

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Edited by

• Editor:
  Roberto Nardi 0000-0002-5018-3621

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  09 Mar 2026
• Date of issue
  2026

History

• Received
  14 June 2024
• Accepted
  12 June 2025