I am looking for some guidance which indicates clearly how CR is applied to the methods/ methodology of mixed methods( especially the quantitative elements) research. I am finding it very hard to map the terms and ideas onto my methods, results, conclusions and discussion. Is there clear guidance on this?
1.Where do observations and measures, and the results of correlation, principal component analysis and regression tie in to the three domains?
Examples
- Are observation/ measures in the empirical domain?
- Is a correlation indicative of an event in the actual?
- Do the theories to explain refer to the structures and mechanisms in the real domain?
- Factor analysis, in my case yielded FAC1 internal/psychological effects, FAC2 relations/social and FAC3 physical ( age and hours worked ). do these indicate the strata within the real domain?
2. What is the difference between a regularity and a demi-regularity? Are low correlations the same as demi-regs?
3.When it comes to explaining observations and regularities, what do we classify as entities, structures and mechanisms?
Examples
My finding is that vicarious trauma, burnout, age and poor worker relations lead to turnover intention in social workers, which of these are entities? which are mechanisms?
Is the social worker the entity?
Is vicarious trauma an entity because it causes turnover?
Is it an emergent entity or an emergent property? Is it an emergent entity with properties that lead to turnover?
Are worker relationships an entity? Or do they feed into workplace culture, which in turn influences them? How would this be described in CR terms?
Most of the work on Critical Realism in mixed methods research has been done by Joseph Maxwell, who relies on Donald Campbell rather than Roy Bhaskar. So, there has been some confusion there.
In your question you say that you have had difficult mapping CR "terms and ideas onto my methods, results, conclusions and discussion." But if you already have reached a set of conclusions, I wonder if it really makes sense to work backwards to the elements of CR. Instead, the typical way that mixed methods researchers talk about the use of paradigms such as CR is as a fundamental set of assumptions that inevitably guide your choice of methods, productions of results, etc.
So, if you didn't start from a CR perspective, I am unclear why you want to pursue it after the fact.
Thank you for your reply David L Morgan . I simply want to confirm that I have applied the metatheory correctly to my work and am looking for good examples to help with this. I will certainly return to Joseph Maxwell and Donald Campbell.
The terms empirical, actual, and real are usually associated with Bhaskar. I don't know of any equivalent in the work of Joseph Maxwell and Donald Campbell.
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