Mixed Case Response

 Last chapter in Creswell text covers Mixed Methods. It gives you four criteria to determine which method to use - timing, weight, mixing, and theoretical lens/framework. Then it breaks the methods down into six strategies based on how the data is collected.

To me, Creswell seems to obfuscate Mixed Methods (while simultaneously oversimplifying quantitative, but that's another discussion). In exploring the use of Mixed Methods, we can ask the same questions we've been asking about qualitative and quantitative methods this whole time. What question are you asking and what is the best method for obtaining an accurate answer? Why is your method reliable and valid for what you're studying? If you were doing an in-depth interview of a specific group of people, would some broader statistics about that group be relevant and enlightening for your research? Yes? Boom! You have a reason to use mixed methods. If you perform a survey and find that a group of people gave unusual answers that didn't line up with your hypothesis, would interviewing or doing a case study of those people be helpful? Boom! Mixed Methods!

I am glad to be moving on to The Case. While Creswell is a useful primer for a very broad view of research, as soon as you move into a meaningful research project you would have to do additional reading on the methods you are using anyway.

The introduction to the Dyson and Genishi text explains why a text on Case Studies is warranted. They give examples, specifically about a girl named Madlenka and others, of how a particular individual's story can be used to paint a picture about their world and other people within that world, or other worlds like them. By world, they are referring to a social ecosystem, basically. While the text is a little more abstract so far than Creswell, it does give much more pragmatic and relatable examples/anecdotes.

I particularly enjoyed their section on “cultural practices,” a term they use to describe recurrent events within a group of people. Outside of a modern context, we might immediately think of rituals and in some sense we'd be correct, depending on how broad your definition is. I like the idea of looking at a particular event and then using that event as context to view differences or similarities between groups of people, or between generations of a group. The text uses a lost tooth, which is interesting to think about, but events that spring to mind for me are things like high school graduation, retirement, divorce, or the death of a child. Seeing how families and the social groups they are connected to comes together in these times can definitely say a lot.