Department of Psychology, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Institute for Life Course Health Research, Department of Global Health, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Qual Health Res. 2021 Feb;31(3):600-614. doi: 10.1177/1049732320976556. Epub 2020 Dec 8.
Qualitative researchers are increasingly making use of multiple media to collect data within a single study. Such approaches may have the potential to generate rich insights; however, there are also potential methodological challenges in simultaneously analyzing data from multiple media. Using three case studies from our work with women who had recurrent breast cancer in South Africa, we explore four challenges of using multiple media to collect data: (a) how to understand the repetition of themes (or lack thereof) across multiple media; (b) whether or not data collected from multiple media over a protracted period should be read as longitudinal data reflecting a dynamic process; (c) what impact using multiple media has on the participant-researcher relationship; and (d) how the medium may shape the data obtained. We propose that the value of using multiple methods lies in the opportunity they provide to understand how participants engage with the different media.
定性研究人员越来越多地在单个研究中使用多种媒体来收集数据。这种方法有可能产生丰富的见解；然而，同时分析来自多种媒体的数据也存在潜在的方法学挑战。我们使用来自南非复发性乳腺癌妇女研究中的三个案例研究，探讨了使用多种媒体收集数据的四个挑战：（a）如何理解多个媒体中主题的重复（或缺乏重复）；（b）是否应该将在长时间内从多种媒体收集的数据视为反映动态过程的纵向数据；（c）使用多种媒体对参与者-研究人员关系的影响；以及（d）媒体如何影响获得的数据。我们提出，使用多种方法的价值在于它们提供了机会，使我们能够了解参与者如何与不同的媒体互动。
