I am currently designing an intervention (injury surveillance system) to be implemented within an organization. This research (following a pragmatic paradigm) will follow a multiphase mixed methods research consisting of QUAL -> QUANT -> QUAL.
The initial qualitative part will be conducted through interviews with the stakeholders of the organization in order to understand their perspectives with regards to the intervention; to identify barriers and facilitators to implementing the intervention and to design the intervention that best fits with the organizational needs.
My question is this: I am not sure which qualitative approach do I have to consider in this first part of the study. I am approaching this study from a pragmatic world view and hence I do not know whether this part requires a specific qualitative approach.
I am not sure what you mean by a "qualitative approach." If you have already chosen a pragmatic "paradigm," then that should guide your activities throughout the study design. In particular, your sequential design is centered on a qualitative interventions, so you should choose your qualitative methods and procedures so that they maximize your ability to both develop an effective intervention (qual --> Quan) and understand the reasons behind the outcomes from that intervention (QUAN --> qual).
Sandro - your 'worldview' can dictate the qualitative approach that you adopt for the first phase. However, your framework is already pragmatism - so you need to question the need (if any) for you to add a methodological philosophy/theory. If you want to develop theory - the got for GT. If you want an in-depth examination of 'experience' then choose phenomenology. If you want to investigate the 'field - then choose ethnography. Remember - that these approaches have very many sub-disciplines which affect overall outcome. For most, it is often enough to perform qualitative, descriptive exploratory. As David states, what is most important is, pragmatically, what do you want to achieve by using mixed methods - rather than 'what is my worldview?' i.e. which qualitative methodology will best structure my intervention?
If by chance you are working collaboratively with the organization, you may want to explore transformative mixed methods (Mertens)
Dear Sandro,
I agree with David L Morgan and Dean Whitehead that the most important thing is to define why you choose Pragmatism as the paradigm for your research. For example, I also conducted a multiphase mixed methods design for my doctoral research, which included an intervention. But while Pragmatism was the umbrella paradigm for the overall design of my research (w/ 4 research phases in total), the different phases of my project adopted different paradigms. For instance, whereas the phases with a QUAL priority adopted a constructivist stance, the ones with a QUAN priority had pragmatic stance.
The reason why I adopted pragmatism as the Overarching Umbrella was precisely because one of its fundamental principles is paradigm integration, i.e. the synthesis of quantitative and qualitative standpoints. In short, the eclectic nature of pragmatism partners well with the multidimensionality of mixed methods multiphase designs, by allowing the allocation of different paradigms along the different research phases of multiphase designs.
You might want to have a look at the mixed methods literature on Pragmatism, and why some mixed methods methodologists see it as the umbrella paradigm of MMR (although others disagree with it). I would recommend you to have a look at the following references:
- Johnson, R. B., Onwuegbuzie, A. J., & Turner, L. A. (2007). Toward a definition of mixed methods research. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 1(2), 112-133
- Morgan, D. L. (2014). Pragmatism as a Paradigm for Social Research. Qualitative Inquiry, 20(8), 1045–1053. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800413513733
You might want also to have a look at the section of Creswell and Plano Clark’s (2011) book on the typical paradigms of multiphase designs.
I hope this helps.
Best, Joana
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