Research Design

The researcher is presented with a number of factors to balance when designing a research approach, including the aims of the study and available resources, together with a “palette of methods” with which to explore the subject (Mason, 2006: 14).

These methods should be guided by the questions that drive the research which, according to Mason (2006: 18), can lead the researcher to a “repertoire of creative and mixed methods”. The purpose of this study is to understand the motivations of PSVs, their contribution to policing, and their experiences within the Metropolitan Police Service. Therefore, a qualitative approach yielding thick description and personal perspectives, and engaging the reader through the voices of the subjects of interest, seemed most appropriate (Patton, 2002).

However, as an under researched area, it was important to capture data that offered a broader understanding of the field and the issues that affect PSVs to provide a contextual backdrop to the subject and guide for further exploration. As such, this study adopted a mixed methods approach: an online self-completion survey of MPS PSVs incorporating both quantitative and qualitative elements of inquiry to offer a resource effective opportunity to identify key issues, patterns, and headline themes from a large number of volunteers, and face-to-face semi-structured interviews to explore variables further, and provide description and deeper insight (Patton, 2002;

Guest, 2012; Archibald et al., 2015). This section outlines the opportunities and challenges that a mixed method approach offers, and why such an approach was deemed appropriate in this study

3.2.1. Enhancing Understanding through a Mixed Methods Approach

Mixed methods research refers to programmes of work that collect and analyse both quantitative and qualitative data in the context of a single study (Driscoll et al., 2007;

Hesse-Biber, 2015). Denzin (2012: 82) reflects on mixing methods in social research as

“an attempt to secure an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon in question”, with a combination of methodological practices offering a strategy that “adds rigor, breadth complexity, richness, and depth to any inquiry”. Indeed, mixed methods can offer fewer limitations than single methods alone – assuming that data is appropriately collected, integrated, and analysed – expanding the scope of studies, offsetting the weaknesses of individual approaches, and providing an opportunity to tap into different perspectives and aspects of behaviour to enrich understanding of lived realities through both macro and micro structures (Brannen, 1992; Moran-Ellis et al., 2006; Driscoll et al., 2007; Hammersley, 2008; Symonds and Gorard, 2010;).

Mason (2006: 12) highlights the multi-dimensional nature of social phenomena –

“lived, experienced and enacted simultaneously on macro and micro scales” – and how methods need to match this level of complexity. Indeed, qualitative data can often see things that are not possible in quantitative analysis, and vice versa. As Patton (2002:

54) posits, a survey “captures and freezes a moment in time” (often on a considerably larger scale) while qualitative inquiry offers opportunities to explore “a fluid sense of development, movement, and change” (albeit lower in volume). Mixing elements of both quantitative and qualitative data gathering and analysis offers opportunities for deeper understanding of the “complexities and contexts of social experience, and for enhancing our capacities for social explanation and generalisation” (Mason, 2006: 10).

The survey in this study included both open and closed variables; although was primarily quantitative in nature, consisting of largely closed ended questions. The data gathered using this method was insightful, setting the wider scene and generating understanding on prevalence and patterns from a sizable number of PSVs in a standardised and succinct manner, which was essential in order to highlight themes for further exploration (Patton, 2002; Guest, 2012). This is valuable in any study but

takes on renewed importance in one exploring an under researched area with few datasets (particularly at the start of the study) available for secondary analysis.

However, the purpose of this study was to understand volunteering in the police service through the views and experiences of those involved. As Patton (2002: 14) states, this requires “both their numbers and their stories”, therefore the qualitative data collected in this study (derived largely through semi-structured interviews) was essential in order to gain a situated and contextual understanding, and explore concepts and categories in greater depth (Mason, 2006).

Indeed, a survey can only ‘tap the surface’, often restricting the way in which respondents are able to share their views and experiences, with the topics covered and answer options given guided by the researchers’ presuppositions about the area of study. Furthermore, surveys limit the extent that the processes by which participants came to adopt certain values or behaviours can be understood (Patton, 2002: 17). May (1997: 104-5) argues that “the myriad of differences in people's attitudes and the meanings which they confer on events can hardly be accommodated by compartmentalising them into fixed categories at one point in time”, with surveys sometimes presenting a “simplification of a complex social world”.

The qualitative data collected in this study, added depth and meaning to quantitative survey findings. This allowed the fieldwork to enter in to respondents’ perspectives in more detail “…to gather their stories, probe answers in more detail, and seek reflective replies” (Glastonbury and MacKean, 1991; Patton, 2002: 20). Although presenting challenges in terms of generalisability, interviews are a key resource for understanding how people make sense of their social world (May, 1997; Patton, 2002: 341). Indeed, Lewis (2003: 58) asserts that interviews are the only way to collect data where it is important – as it was in this study – to understand the perspectives of research subjects within the context of personal history, experiences, and motivations.

The mixed method mode of inquiry that was adopted in this study offered an important opportunity to triangulate data (Mason, 2006; Guest, 2012). Denzin (1978 in Patton, 2002) identifies four types of triangulation: theory, investigator, method,

and data, with this study adopting the latter two (the process of integrating and triangulating data is explored in more detail later in this chapter). Triangulation allows the researcher to take “bearings on two landmarks in order to locate one’s position”, thus helping to reaffirm, explore and develop issues. Indeed, using different types of data within a study enables the researcher to explore the validity of data interpretations and shed light on different aspects of the subject of study (Hammersley, 2008: 24). Whether complementary or conflicting, the similarities and differences between datasets offer opportunity for deeper insights (Patton, 2002). In this study, survey findings provided a framework or structure for issues that were emerging as important to PSV respondents, while semi-structured interviews were an opportunity to unpack findings further. Driscoll et al. (2007: 26) suggest that mixed method research designs bring these ‘pragmatic advantages’ – offering statistical data to highlight themes and patterns, and qualitative data for deeper understanding.

However, mixed methods approaches are not without their challenges, most notably in terms of reconciling different data and collection methods. There are often questions around the extent to which qualitative and quantitative methods, and resultant data, can be mixed without “violating paradigmatic assumptions of each”

(Archibald et al., 2015: 7). Research methods have their own ontological and epistemological groundings, and the extent to which the ‘truth’ can be approximated merely by combining data from different methods should be approached with some caution (Moran-Ellis et al., 2006; Denzin, 2012). Indeed, Hammersley (2008) questions whether combining data derived from different methods is legitimate simply on the basis that they are talking to the same people about the same issues (albeit in different ways).

Analysis of mixed method datasets also presents some complexity. Moran-Ellis et al.

(2006) highlight the challenges of integrating diverse data into a form of common analysis, while avoiding the loss of distinct characteristics of each. Furthermore, the weight that should be given to the different modes of inquiry is debated in mixed methods research with some suggestion that integration requires that different

weight can vary throughout the research process (Moran Ellis et al., 2006; Symonds and Gorard, 2010). This study followed a ‘thread approach’ in which each individual set of data was analysed within the parameters of its own paradigm in order to identify key themes, then brought together in an exploratory framework to create a

“constellation of findings which can be used to generate a multi-faceted picture of the phenomenon” (Moran-Ellis et al., 2006: 54). The weighting of each method varied throughout different parts of the study: when identifying themes (particularly across typologies), the larger sample size of the survey was imperative; however, when unpicking the ‘stories’ and experiences behind these themes, it was often the rich, qualitative data derived through semi-structured interviews that offered most value.

This allowed for further exploration of matters that arose in closed ended questions in the survey, for example, issues of ‘feeling useful’ and ensuring an appropriate supply of tasks for PSVs – an unexpected survey theme that forms a central feature of analysis and discussion in Chapter Five of this thesis.

Despite some reservations around ‘methodological pluralism’ (Moran Ellis et al., 2006:

56), Hammersley (2008: 32) applauds the ‘spirit’ of mixed methods research as an approach which seeks to “undermine the tendency to assume that there are impermeable boundaries between the quantitative and the qualitative”. Indeed, Mason (2006) argues that the value of a mixed methods approach should be judged by the questions it allows the researcher to ask and answer. In this study, the identification of themes and patterns that the quantitative elements of the survey have enabled, together with the richness of qualitative responses within semi-structured interviews and some freetext sections of the survey that have helped to

‘unpack’ these patterns and themes further, have offered considerably greater insight in to the experiences of PSVs in the Metropolitan Police Service than either one of these methods alone. The process of mixing methods in this study – most notably when designing interview schedules, interview sampling, and during interpretation and analysis of data – are explored in more detail throughout this chapter.