I am interested to know about the impact of the internship programme in supporting nurse interns during the experience of workplace violence. I don't know if the qualitative design could work or mixed-methods. My scoping review found that little is known about the impact of this programme on workplace violence.
I would suggest interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The small sample size affords an excellent opportunity to explore the lived experiences of this group of nurses. As stated by Smith and Osborne, "The aim of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is to explore in detail how participants are making sense of their personal and social world, and the main currency for an IPA study is the meanings particular experiences, events, states hold for participants."
Hello,
It could be informative for us to know, what kind of results you have achieved during your literature review. In other words: what are the methodological options you have been deliberating thus far?
In mixed methods research, the quantitative portion of the project almost always involves testing hypotheses, so if there has been little exploratory research in your field, than a qualitative project might well be more appropriate. In addition, mixed methods can be very difficult to accomplish successfully.
David L Morgan,
Could you describe the (possibly different) dynamics between quantitative and qualitative components or dimensions in mixed methods approaches? Are there any risks of contradictory outputs from these components? I mean, what kind of "mixes" can appear in mixed method approaches?
The rhetoric of triangulation seems sometimes to tell, that by using multiple methods, data sets and/or theories you simply add something to results in turn. However, as you said above, mixed methods can be challenging to implement.
First, triangulation has become such a poorly defined concept that the Journal of Mixed Methods Research no long accepts articles that are based on it. As an alternative, they have offered a 1 + 1 = 3 logic, but I personally think that kind of emphasis on "synergy" is over-stated.
Instead, I think it is helpful to concentrate on the concept of integration, and how the results from the two methods will be connected to each other. Too often, the results are simply presented separately, as if the qualitative and quantitative studies had just been "stapled together."
Finally, the idea of "contradictory outcomes" assumes that both methods are being used separately to answer the same research question (which is sometimes known as "convergence"). This is actually a very rare design in mixed methods research. So yes, it certainly is possible to get divergence rather than convergence, but that kind of comparison is seldom a motivation.
When I partook in a methodological workshop for doctoral students of information studies circa 2000, the topic was set as "multiple research methods - do I need them?". I think that triangulation was both "hot" topic and as a term quite new for most of us (doctoral students at our faculty of humanities) then.
I remember that personally I was frustrated, because the very idea of doctoral dissertation as a project appeared to me difficult enough, even without thinking the issues related to triangulation. In other words, it was hard to see possible advantages from it when compared to increasing complexity of the project.
In terms of David L Morgan 's answer, the relationships between ideas about triangulation and the process of formulating and operationalizing research questions were not clear enough in our situations then.
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