The scope of results in the Life History Method: Are they transferable to other contexts?

Abstract

This study sought to interpret the contributions of researchers in Life Stories, supporting the hypothesis of its scientific validity and generalization capacity, using a documentary approach with a bibliographic design, which used empirical methods (descriptive notes, content matrices) and theoretical (analysis -synthesis). The documentary corpus included 11 specialized articles, with a semantic analysis of the data. It was concluded that Life Stories meet the scientific requirement of generalization. Although they are idiographic generalizations, they facilitate the transferability of inductive theories, creating coherent and verifiable representations of the world. To ensure its validity and reliability, various instruments were used, verifying the authenticity of the data with the informants and using multimethod techniques such as triangulation.