Mixed methods research as a framework to study complex phenomena

Abstract

A mong vulnerable cash benefit recipients it is difficult to measure the short term employment outcomes of program interventions. Possible long term outcomes such as employment or participation in education are difficult to link causally to program interventions. For this group of clients, such outcomes might not even be within reach. Thus we need a different methodology to understand the meaning and outcomes of the employment programs for our most vulnerable unemployed. This approach is based on the understanding that current – both qualitative and quantitative – research falls short in trying to elucidate the phenomenon. The methods may each be able to explain part of phenomenon but none of them reaches far enough individually in relation to the whole phenomenon. Thus, the available evidence is not robust enough to serve as a basis for developing activation programs relevant for cash benefit recipients that have complex social problems. We are therefore left with a knowledge gap which no mono-methodological approach can fill alone. On this basis, the article suggests a mixed methods research approach which is able to navigate between the boundaries of the different methodologies. The starting point is thus not a particular method or philosophy of science, which the research design is committed to in advance. In contrast, the primary focus is the phenomenon, and how it is possible to use a combination of different methods to achieve a deeper and broader understanding of cash benefit recipients’ progress towards the labor market. This approach is based on a relational understanding of causality where the individual’s life situation is regarded not as a consequence of the surrounding context, but as an effect that is performed and reproduced in daily activities. By this is meant that the outcomes cannot be explained with reference to the intervention, because the intervention in itself is constituted by and created in interaction with the activities in the field. Thus, the article outlines a mixed methods approach in which interviews, observations, progression- and outcome measurements are combined in order to gain a more nuanced, in-depth knowledge about this specific target group’s progress towards the labor market. The methods are integrated consecutive in the point of interfaces within the research process, where the knowledge gained during the data collecting inspires and affect the following data waves. In the point of interfaces, mixed methods research establishes its eligibility and contributes to filling in the knowledge gap exposed. Mixed methods research as a framework for understanding complex phenomena thereby gives us a qualified knowledge that should serve as an important complement to the more established forms of knowledge.