This dissertation presents research questions concerning perceptions of non-drinkers and experiences of non-drinkers and is also intended to produce some synthesis of these previously unconnected areas of research in the form of a health promotion intervention.
Given the variety of research questions presented at the end of Chapter One, it follows that varied research methods of data collection (interviews, surveys and exercises) using both qualitative and quantitative data analytic methods are applicable to this research programme. This chapter is included to provide a discussion of: (i) the methodological issues involved in an integrated mixed methods research programme, (ii) the possible analytic approaches available for the qualitative data analysis, (iii) issues relating to methodological quality and research ethics and (iv) study-specific methodological issues relating to sampling, data collection and data analysis.
2.1.1 Mixed methods research
Mixed methods research has been defined in various ways in the literature. Indeed, some authors have suggested that mixed methods research programmes are paradigms in their own right (Greene, 2008). However the extent to which different research methods, each with its own epistemological position, can be integrated within the same research programme can polarise authors (Creswell, 2011). For example, some authors adopting a purist stance claim that two versions of reality nested in the same research programme presents a fundamental problem of contradictory incompatibility for mixed methods researchers (e.g., Holmes, 2006). Other authors have taken a more optimistic
view of the possibilities for mixing distinct methodological paradigms in the same research programme. For example, Greene and Caracelli (1997) suggest how useful tensions can emerge from the presence of opposing ontological paradigms in the same research programme. Taking the view that a mixed methods programme is composed of multiple phases of research design (each with their own paradigmatic orientation) has provided an additional way for responding to purist criticism of mixed methods research (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007).
The decision to adopt a mixed methods research approach was based on several factors. First, common to most health psychology research, studies in this dissertation stem from real world research issues and therefore required methodological flexibility if sufficient breadth of understanding was to be reached (Robson, 2002). Second,
following a strict epistemological rationale rather than choosing the most suitable methodological tools suited to distinct features of research enquiry was arguably not conducive to producing progressive and subject-sensitive research. In this dissertation, the range of topic areas meant that measuring phenomena from an outsider perspective as well as trying to understand things from an insider perspective both were relevant - the former and latter representing positivist and interpretative paradigms respectively (Smith & Heshusius, 1986). This is clear when one considers the nature of the over-arching research questions. Specifically, when thinking about perceptions of non-drinkers, issues of measurement are inevitably involved. For example, quantification is needed if it is to be understand whether negative perceptions of non-drinkers are linked with higher levels of alcohol consumption, among whom this association may be strongest, and whether perceptions can be influenced to become more favourable in response to a health promotion intervention. By contrast, when thinking about experiences of student non-drinkers, issues of meaning and understanding are
important. For example, fine grain exploration of a qualitative data set would be required if the reasons for non-drinking, strategies involved in non-drinking and possible negative and positive aspects of non-drinking are to be well understood.
The following two sections cover, respectively, issues relevant to mixed methods programmes generally and the rationale underpinning the current research programme’s mixed methods approach.
2.1.2 Ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions
Integration of mixed methods research may present difficulties given that different studies may be based on different epistemological foundations. This dissertation includes quantitative methods associated with positivist paradigms including between-participant comparisons (e.g., ANOVAs, Chapter Three), moderation analyses (Chapter Four), factor analytic procedures (e.g., exploratory factor analysis, Chapter Three) and longitudinal structural equation models (e.g., latent growth analysis, Chapter Ten).
However this dissertation also includes qualitative methods in the form of two thematic branches from an interpretative phenomenological analysis (presented in Chapters Six and Seven), which embraces some degree of relativism in its epistemological stance.
Qualitative and quantitative approaches are concerned with, respectively, focus on words versus a focus on numbers; a focus on meanings versus behaviour; the rejection or adoption of natural science as a dominant epistemological paradigm, and an emphasis on cultural patterns versus establishing universal laws (Hammersley, 1992). This means there are inherent tensions involved in a research programme where positivist and interpretivist epistemological positions are mixed and differing ontological
understandings of the social world are implied. Indeed, the decision to adopt a particular psychological research method reflects a chain of paradigmatic assumptions relating to
assumptions about existential reality (i.e., ontological assumptions), the status of knowledge (i.e., epistemological assumptions) and practices or principles concerning methods (i.e., methodological assumptions). In this way, it is important to acknowledge that a given method is inseparable from its associated philosophical framework. This presents a problem for mixed methods researchers as different research methods will reflect different philosophical assumptions about the nature of reality. Also, positivist researchers adopt the position that the world can be viewed objectively, theorised in universalistic terms and measured accordingly. Broadly speaking, researchers adopting an interpretivist position would suggest that knowledge is always relative and that therefore the research process should focus on identifying patterns of meaning making and acknowledging the interpretive preference of both the researcher and researched in making sense of social phenomena. These positions can also be thought of in terms of an epistemological spectrum ranging from naïve realism, through to contextual relativist and radical relativist epistemological positions (Madill, Jordan, & Shirley, 2000), along which possibilities for concrete meanings are progressively challenged, with greater emphasis increasingly placed on how understanding is conditional on relational and situated features of the data collection process (Madill et al., 2000).
With a range of differing epistemologies having been acknowledged, it can now be better understood how including multiple methods, each with a differing starting point, within the same research programme, raises questions on epistemological grounds.
Differing ways in which mixed methods research might be meaningfully approached and ways in which epistemological tensions might be understood (if not resolved) have been presented by some authors. For example, it has been suggested that adopting a multi-dimensional mixed methods approach in which the integrity of different perspectives is maintained within the same narrative might produce a useful creative
tension between methods (Mason, 2006). Similarly, it has been suggested that complete synthesis needs not be core within a mixed methods approach, where epistemological tensions can themselves be an element involved in creating meaning (Dellinger &
Leech, 2007). In this dissertation, though real world concerns presented a rationale for mixed methods research, an iterative sequence of study stages involving distinct methodological approaches was not adopted, consistent with the recommendations of several authors (Dures, Rumsey, Morris, & Gleeson, 2011; Tashakkori & Creswell, 2007). Instead, different phenomena (e.g., perceptions of non-drinkers; experiences of non-drinkers) were explored via different ontological approaches (e.g., positivisim;
relativism) and using distinct research methods (e.g., inferential statistics;
phenomenological analysis), on the basis of their relevance to each research question.
2.1.3 A pragmatic approach to mixed methods
Although these issues are clearly of concern within a traditional programme of psychological research involving a methodologically purist perspective, this is not of concern from a pragmatic perspective where the appropriate matching of methods to research programme questions is given greatest priority. In the spirit of pragmatism, alternative ways of conceiving a basis for qualitative research which manages to be rigorous yet flexible have recently been provided by several authors (Howe, 2003;
Yardley & Bishop, 2007). For example, researchers working from differing
epistemological positions have been encouraged to engage in ‘paradigm dialogue’, referring to a willingness to engage collaboratively on issues relating to knowledge accumulation, values and politics which may underscore the research process.
This has led to recent discussion supporting the adoption of mixed methods on a pragmatic basis. For example, it has been suggested that mixed methods research might
be more usefully understood as a set of epistemological tools to address real world issues rather than an epistemological position in its own right (Biesta, 2010). Similarly, Denzin (2010) has suggested that mixed methods research provides a powerful way of orientating social science research towards more utilitarian applications. Therefore, it could be argued that for social research to be most useful, then exchanges and
interactions between paradigms may be essential.
In this context, Mason’s (2011) notion of facet methodology is also useful. Facet methodology encourages varied enquiry lines and ways of understanding such that strict boundaries between methods and epistemologies are abandoned for a more fluid
analytic approach privileging data complexity and a more collaborative, dialogical and creative approach to methodology. From this position, fundamental dissimilarities in opinion about what kinds of knowledge should be privileged in social science research (epistemological differences) and alternative beliefs about social reality (ontological differences) in the same research programme are easily overcome, as the contributions of each distinct research question offers creative scope for understanding a research topic area (Mason, personal communication, July 3, 2012).
In the spirit of facet methodology, contributions of quantitative and qualitative approaches in the current research programme is to cast them as problem-focussed and solution-focussed, respectively. With respect to the problem-focussed component, understanding how perceptions of non-drinkers are linked to consumption-related patterns may provide a novel basis for screening a target group among whom such perceptions or attitudes might be challenged or modified. With respect to the solution-focussed component, understanding experiences of non-drinkers are anticipated to provide important insights into how students might be supported in the decision not to drink during social occasions, and how such a decision might be presented more
favourably. Accordingly, research in this dissertation first explores the relationship between perceptions of non-drinkers and alcohol consumption patterns (Chapters Three and Four), followed by a detailed account of the social experiences of five non-drinkers (Chapters Six and Seven), and concludes with a synthesis of dissertation data in a final empirical study describing an intervention to reduce student alcohol consumption (Chapter Ten).