While some researchers will primarily (or in some cases, totally) research using one ap- proach, increasingly social researchers are drawing on either qualitative or quantitative ap- proaches to gathering data or using both in mixed-methods approaches. Example B4.1 illustrates that studying any social phenomena (in this case a darts match) can be under- taken from different perspectives and to get a holistic picture of what is happening we may need to gather a range of different types of data using different methods. Which methods we choose depends on our research questions and how we define the concepts within them (A4).
In our example, we could choose to analyse the success of the darts match in numeric terms (quantitative), but we could also choose to analyse it in terms of the players’ moods, stresses, preoccupations and so on. To do either would give us interesting results. However, if our main focus is to consider why, in this case, Tony lost the match, then we need both types of data as well as perhaps some historical data about previous matches. The most use- ful way to study the situation would be to include a combination of qualitative and quan- titative procedures – or mixed methods.
A mixed-methods approach to choosing data collection methods should come from the research questions and show that the research questions can best be answered using both types of data. Sometimes one research question (or subsidiary) question demands quanti- tative data while another requires qualitative data; in other cases both qualitative and quantitative data may be required to answer one research question.
Think about it . . .
In A4 we developed a research question concerning unemployment and mental health.
What are the impacts of long-term unemployment on people’s mental health?
1. After operationalising the concepts of unemployment and mental health we refined the question to:
What are the impacts on how people who have had paid work feel about themselves and their lives when they have been without any paid work for more than a year?
What type of data do you think you would need to gather (and from whom) to answer this question?
It may be possible to learn how external influences (for example, the noise made by other people in the bar) impacted on the individual players.
It may be possible to understand why one player did better than the other in this setting.
Some reasons for using mixed methods:
If the two methods above were combined, then we would have two sorts of informa- tion which we could use together, which would make our research better.
2. Another way of operationalising mental health suggested in A4was:
Presence or absence of clinically diagnosed mental disorders
What type of data do you think you would need to gather (and from whom) to answer the question if this was your operational definition of mental health?
Now see our suggested answers on p. 146.
Qualitative and quantitative methods can be used in combination in a number of different ways.
Qualitative methods can be used:
before quantitative
Qualitative approaches enable the researcher to explore concepts in more depth with the research participants and to hear them talk about concepts in their own words (like mental health – see the ‘Think about it . . .’ box above). This can be a useful way of be- ginning to research a topic with which the researcher is unfamiliar or about which little research has already been done. Operational definitions can be developed or tested and this can be helpful in ensuring that the wording of structured questions in, for example, questionnaires, is commonly understood and meaningful to the research participants. From such qualitative data more structured data collection questions can be developed. Taking a qualitative approach can also help the researcher to identify and check out which aspects of a topic are most important and meaningful to the research participants and this may then provide the ideas for developing hypotheses or subsidiary research questions (A4).
alongside quantitative
Both approaches can be used alongside each other with each type of data contributing to answering either the same or different research questions.
after quantitative
Qualitative approaches may be used after quantitative ones to enable the researcher to explore some of the issues raised in the quantitative data in more depth. Quantitative data may be gathered that helps the researcher to identify small groups of people who are different or have interesting experiences and a more in-depth approach to collecting data from them will enable the researcher to explore issues in depth. In the example in the ‘Think about it . . .’ box above, an initial questionnaire to unemployed people might be used to identify those who perceive themselves as having mental-health problems and qualitative approaches may then be used to explore these perceptions in more depth with a small group of individuals (C4) or in a focus group (C5).
While a mixed-methods approach often means gathering both quantitative and qualitative data, this is not necessarily the case. It may be that you choose two different ways of gather- ing quantitative data – for example – using a questionnaire survey and working with second- ary data. Or you may decide to gather qualitative data using both semi-structured interviews and participant observation (C6). Using two or more ways of gathering data to help you to answer your research question(s) can help you to check the validity of your data. This process is called triangulationas it reflects the process of triangulation used in mapping – pinpoint- ing one point by measuring the distance and angle from two other points. In social research, collecting and working with data from different sources but on the same topic can help us to cross-check our findings.
triangulation A measure of research quality, meaning that if different types of data are collected to address the same research question, each set of data can be used to check the findings from the others.
If we find that there are discrepancies or anomalies in the data from different sources or using different approaches then we need to consider why this may be so. In some cases this may be explained by the intentional use of different operational definitions as in the ‘Think about it . . .’ example, or it may be that there are different perspectives or understandings on the issues that using different methods of collecting data has highlighted. For example, people may discuss some issues quite differently in a focus group from the way people will talk about the issue when interviewed individually. This, in itself, may be an interesting finding or it may make us question whether our data collection tools – in this case our in- terview and focus group guides – have produced different responses because of wording differences, a different emphasis on questions by the interviewer or the use of different interviewers.