Contexts of Qualitative Research: Arts-Based Research, Mixed Methods, and Emergent Methods

Abstract

This contribution focuses on three contexts of qualitative research that have increasingly gained in importance in the past several years: arts-based research, mixed methods, and emergent methods. Different approaches and types of arts-informed and arts-based research are presented. On this basis it is argued that arts-based research constitutes a distinct research tradition that has the potential to act as a driving force for qualitative social science research in important respects. Concerning mixed methods, the contention is that qualitative research methods and approaches are not yet accorded the same relevance as quantitative research methods and approaches. Nevertheless, the mixed methods research tradition has increasingly taken up impulses from qualitative social science over the past years and has adapted accordingly. In several respects, emergent methods act as a link between these different research traditions. Arts-based research as a social science research tradition has the potential to broaden the perspectives of both qualitative social science research and mixed methods research in important ways.

URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs170263