+ Mixing science and intuition: the process of synthesising data from a longitudinal mixed methods study of volunteering Rose Lindsey and Liz Metcalfe, University of Southampton Third Sector Research Centre ESRC grant no. ES/K003550/1

+ Presentation aim To explore the challenges encountered when combining longitudinal qualitative and quantitative secondary data to study volunteering across time Key challenge: What do we mean when we talk about synthesising, integration, combining, mixing, interweaving, blending, merging…? (Bryman, 2008) Do we think our methods of combining have actually worked?

+ Presentation outline Part 1: Designing the project Introduction to Continuity and Change project Discussion of the methodological challenges faced within the mixed-method research design  Bringing different data sources and findings into dialogue Part 2: Challenges in practice Exploring the analytical challenges faced when putting the design into practice:  Working across methodological paradigms  Understanding the effect of, and working across, time Design versus practice

+ Part 1: The Continuity and Change Project Aim: To explore individual attitudes and behaviours towards volunteering, and individual views on the role and responsibility of the state towards provision for social need, across a period of thirty years. Design: Concurrent use of longitudinal mixed-methods to analyse secondary data Time-frame: , encompassing different periods of economic adversity and prosperity Project website:

+ Choice of secondary data sets The Mass Observation Project Aim: to capture experiences, thoughts and opinions of individuals A national panel of volunteers writing in response to themed questions or ‘directives’ (1981 to present day) Longitudinal data following the same people through thirty years of their life-course British Household Panel Survey/Understanding Society Aim: to understand individuals’ and households’ social and economic change A national panel of the British population and volunteers (1991 to 2012) Longitudinal data British Social Attitudes Survey Aim: to track people‘s changing social, political and moral attitudes A national survey of the British population (1983 to 2012) Cross-sectional data Qualitative data Quantitative data

+ Why did we use mixed-methods? Enhancing strengths and offsetting weaknesses Study strengthsStudy weaknesses Qualitative Provides depth and nuance relating to the complex reasons why people behave in a certain way, or hold particular viewpoints Offers potential insights into how and why perspectives change or continue over time Enables insights into the connection between the life-course and routes into volunteering Not representative of the population Too much data Quantitative Representative of volunteers within the population Can formally test how volunteering behaviour and attitudes change over time Offers potential insights into contextual re external events affect on change or continuity over time Insight into motivations and barriers are limited Limitations re understanding how individual time and the life-course affect volunteering Our research design aimed to potentially ‘offset’ the respective weaknesses of these two analytical methodologies by taking advantage of their joint strengths to provide a ‘complete[ness]’, and ‘comprehensive’ picture (Bryman, 2008, p.91)

+ Multi-layered picture of volunteering behaviour Contextual: social, economic and political events over time Behaviour and attitude analysis for volunteers within the population In-depth analysis of individual volunteers Sample size decreases Focus on individuals increases Contextual: social, economic and political events over time In-depth analysis of individual volunteers

+ Bringing secondary data sources, analyses and findings into dialogue We aimed for three types of mixed-method dialogue:  across the lifetime of the project, described by Tashakkori and Teddlie (2008, p.104) as a ‘continuous feedback loop’, to enable an iterative research process;  some direct comparisons between qualitative and quantitative analyses where there was a fit between the data;  combining substantive findings so that the sum of our joint knowledge claims would be greater than our individual findings Qualitative data Quantitative data Project beginning Project end Substantive findings

+ Study design challenges-sample fit The Mass Observation Project (MOP) 15 directives (sets of questions) were selected N=38 2 samples were taken to provide a range of ages and occupations Sample 1, n=20 were writers from 1981 to 2012 Sample 2, n=18 were younger and wrote for shorter periods of time Sample restricted to available volunteering data (every other year between 1996 to 2011) N=2067 The Mass Observation Project British Household Panel Survey/Understanding Society British Social Attitudes Survey Questions of volunteering only asked a limited number of times Number of people each year mean (sd) 3393 (711.7)

+ How the three datasets complement each other, temporally and thematically

+ Part 2: Challenges in practice Three main challenges were present throughout the project: Working across methodological paradigms Understanding the effect of, and working across time Putting the design into practice

+ Working and communicating across methodological paradigms Working across methodologies we encountered some challenges: Differences in terminology Forming definitions Timings/speed of analysis Methodological standpoints: differences in the types of questions that are being addressed Conceptions of time

+ How time fits together The way that these multiple perceptions of time interact and intersect (or not) was at the heart of the mixed methods effort for our research project.  the flow of personal biographical, narrative, retrospective, life-course, individual time  chronological time, moving from one year to the next  contextual public/collective time related to chronological time Marriage ChildrenRetirement Double-dip recession Recession Hi, I’m Sarah

+ Multi-layered picture of volunteering behaviour Biographical time Chronological time Contextual timeChanges in social, political and moral attitudes over time Behaviour and attitude analysis for volunteers within the population In-depth volunteer analysis Sample size decreases Focus on individuals increases

+ Design versus practice Longitudinal mixed-methods are more complicated than a single methodological approach Over-estimation of mixed methods: It has not been possible to answer all of the designed research questions with the data chosen, the fit of the samples and the timing of the analysis Did we achieve our mixed method dialogue? Paradigm, background, and terminology differences make maintaining a mixed-method dialogue difficult How time fits together: in practice time does not relate directly between different methodologies Has the project benefited from using mixed-methods?

+ References Bryman, C. (2008) ‘Why do Researchers Integrate/Mesh/Blend/Mix/Merge/Fuse Quantitative and Qualitative research?’, in M.M. Bergman (ed.) Advances in Mixed-Methods Research, London: Sage. pp Tashakkori, A. and Teddlie, C. B. (2008) Quality of Inferences in Mixed Methods Research: Calling for an Integrative Framework in in M.M. Bergman (ed.) Advances in Mixed-Methods Research, London: Sage. pp

+ Thank you for listening, any questions? Contact details:   Project website:

+ Back-up slides

+ The challenges of analysing secondary data over time Quantitative: Variations in data collection process were difficult to uncover The questions that were asked limits the data available Data collected is set within the present time, only part of the life- course is recorded Qualitative: Inconsistent descriptions of the life-course at different time- points Lack of awareness of the what is happening within the present time Accuracy of retrospective writings

+ Study design challenges The mixed-method design framed the study, and influenced how well the data sources fitted together. Compromises around the following choices needed to be made: Choice of secondary data sources Choice of timing of analyses Choice of samples and how these substantively fit together Choice of samples and how these fit together across time (thematic and temporal bunching)

+ Concurrent mixed method design Our research design aimed to potentially ‘offset’ the respective weaknesses of these two analytical methodologies by taking advantage of their joint strengths to provide a ‘complete[ness]’, and ‘comprehensive’ picture (Bryman, 2008, p.91) Qualitative data Quantitative data Project beginning Project end

+ Cross-sectional or Longitudinal? Synchronic or Diachronic? Marriage ChildrenRetirement Double-dip recession Recession The length of chronological time being researched affects our perceptions and understandings of behaviour and attitudes  Longitudinal/diachronic: following a person through time  Cross-sectional/synchronic: A certain point in time Do not volunteer Volunteered Increasing age Hi, I’m Sarah