Relevance & Research Question: Mixed methods research designs comprising qualitative and quantitative data collection & analysis mechanisms offer many benefits to researchers. While triangulation of research findings is commonly considered to be the primary rationale for many mixed methods studies, researchers can also utilize a combination of methods to complement, elaborate, and add richness and detail to better understand research phenomena. This poster aims to exemplify the design of a mixed methods study by highlighting the process, procedures and products from a recent empirical investigation of member participation in online communities.
Methods & Data: As a model for mixed methods research design, the study demonstrated in this poster utilized an exploratory mixed methods research design to collect and analyze qualitative and quantitative data from members of various social, professional and commercial virtual communities. Toward this, the qualitative and quantitative approaches were utilized sequentially with the quantitative phase aiming to provide convergent validity for the findings from the qualitative phase. An adapted grounded theory methodology was used in the qualitative phase of investigation, while the quantitative analysis phase utilized structural equation modeling techniques. These phases of research drew from different sampling frames (qualitative: n = 68 ; quantitative: n = 232), and a combination of online focus groups, a qualitative web questionnaire, and a quantitative web survey instrument were used for data collection.
Results: In terms of outcomes, this poster exemplifies frameworks that can be used to convey research findings and results from qualitative and quantitative phases of investigation, and techniques that can be used for the integration of results from multiple phases. Qualitative analysis tools and techniques such as mind maps, concept maps, tag clouds, qualitative coding queries and coding matrices will be exemplified, along with their integration with quantitative exploratory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling procedures.
Added Value: Suggestions for operationalizing and performing mixed methods research are made.