Greetings, I was wondering if anyone can recommend any mixed methods QUAL-QUANT studies where the initial qualitative phase was used to refine a literature-derived conceptual model prior to quantitative testing. I am minded towards a deductive thematic analysis of semi-structured interview data following which I intend to carry out a survey to see to what degree the findings generalise to the wider population.
BTW my interests are in the area of construction industry relationship marketing but most of the interesting studies I have found to date are socially/psychology related.
many thanks, Nick
Hi Nick,
Qualitative studies are inductive - even if they are part of a classic mixed methods study. The closest to deductive, of a qualitative study, would be Grounded Theory - which is both inductive and deductive; emic and etic.
What is 'good' depends on your critical appraisal. Do not rely on other people's interpretation on what is 'good'.
thanks for your response Dean. my comments were on the back of the highly cited paper by Braun and Clarke (2006) which defines and describes the use of thematic analysis. In the context of thematic analysis, they argue that as well as being derived inductively, themes and patterns can also be identified in a deductive 'top down' manner being a priory theory driven as opposed to being 'ground up' data driven'. According to my reading Grounded Theory would be inductive, at least where one goes in with a 'clean slate' without being sensitized to the literature (I forget whether the latter is Classic, Straussian or Constructivist GT). In my case I am already theoretically sensitized and have developed a conceptual model which I plan to qualitatively explore and refine prior to quantitatively testing.
I take your point about not relying on the opinion of others about what is good but being a relative novice I am open to suggestions from the community.
Nick - Even if you have a model to explore, the exploration should be inductive for a qualitative approach. In qualitative we do not restrict ourselves to a list of responses (think survey questions), but allow responses to emerge. Even if you have a priori codes based on your conceptual model to start with, in Qual research you would then go into the data and see what other codes related to the model emerge, for themes and patterns, and for the how and why behind the codes.
Nick, I'm going to suggest a far more pragmatic response. Braun and Clarke were quite right. Themes, in reality, rarely emerge inductively as has been stated, but emerge from employing our prior knowledge and understanding, and this new knowledge is oriented in reference to what we have previously read, our life experiences, our background, prejudices, disciplinary backgrounds and so on and so forth. This was the main problem with the Grounded Theory Method. Charmaz tried to fix this, but it's still a bit shonky philosophically speaking, in my opinion. In qualitative inquiry, I would posit that themes (and theory construction) rather emerge in an 'abductive' fashion, which draws on the work of the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce. There's a nice paper by Timmermans and Tavory (2012) which explains this process (link below)
Meanwhile, the process that you describe is actually not really that dissimilar from an approach I have used myself across two papers in Social Science and Medicine. The first was a systematic review and presented a hypothetical conceptual model, while the second paper related to (sort of) testing the model in the field and coming up with an 'empirically informed conceptual model' which combined the state of the art (as represented by the systematic review) with my own further empirical work employing abductive inference through critical realist-informed qualitative inquiry and methods of analysis. There are plenty of references in these two papers to work with, but I would particularly draw your attention to Dubois and Gadde's paper on 'systematic combing' using abductive inference (see http://www.pm.lth.se/fileadmin/_migrated/content_uploads/6._Dubois_Gadde_Systematic_Combining.pdf ) as it may help you avoid some of these epistemological bear traps, and purists telling you that qualitative research is actually all about induction...
Article The Potential of Social Enterprise to Enhance Health and Wel...
Article Conceptualising the public health role of actors operating o...
and this is the Timmermans and Tavory article:
Article Theory Construction in Qualitative Research From Grounded Th...
Thank you Dean, Cheryl and Michael for your responses. Michael your recommendation to take an abductive approach to this problem is interesting. Thanks for the reference material.
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