Combining Graphic Elicitation Methods and Narrative Family Interviews in a Qualitative Multimethod Design
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-24.1.3970Keywords:
narrative interview, timeline, genogram, verbal data, visual data, visualization, triangulation, mixed and multimethod research, linked lives, biographical researchAbstract
By combining different methods, researchers can use the strengths of each to compensate the constraints of others and to more comprehensively examine their research topic. In this article, I elaborate upon the strengths and weaknesses of timelines and genograms (visual data, graphic elicitation) in comparison to narrative family interviews (verbal data collection). I explain why we integrated these methods in a collaborative research project, and discuss how we used them for the purposes of comparison, mutual compensation, or complementarity during sampling, data collection, and analysis. The methodological arguments are illustrated with empirical examples from a research project on status maintenance in middle-class families to show how we used the three methods to explore complementary perspectives on individual and linked lives and to analyze longitudinal biographical data and three-generation relationships. My intention is to open up new methodological perspectives for qualitative as well as mixed method researchers by reflecting on our qualitative design using concepts from the mixed methods and multimethod research (MMMR) discourse. Furthermore, I would like to contribute to advancing the MMMR discourse in regard to still underrepresented reconstructive or interpretative approaches. My overall aim is to reflect upon the epistemological problem of how scientists and respondents (re)construct the object of research through different methods.
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