Studying the life course via autobiographies (a methodological testing)

The method of sociological autobiographies was tested in the project “Life course of generation transitioned to adulthood in the 1990s” to obtain the data on the life course of generation using the 100 autobiographies written for survey purposes by randomly selecting respondents from the generation born in 1960–1975. The method provides rich data on the list and sequence of life events, interrelations with different life events, periods and domains, causal relationships and consequences of varying life decisions. Limitations of the autobiographical method to study a life course is low standardization and high variability in data quality between respondents – completeness, logical sequences, included and excluded events, evaluative judgments, motivations and emotions. Respondents feature different perceptions and autobiography standards formed on bases of their previous personal and general cultural experiences, different views on private and public information, and the sensitivity to topics and issues of major impact on the data quality. The method was sensitive to each component of the task – title of the document, design of the form, guiding instructions, it is also demanding for financial and organizational resources. Uniqueness of information which may be obtained using this method stimulates the search for solutions to overcome at least some of these weaknesses. The proposed solutions are using autobiographies as supplement to other survey methods as formalized questionnaires with no quantitative samples, follow-up in-depth interviews after analysis of autobiographies or online methods of whiteboard for interactive autobiographies and probing questions.