Monday, February 27, 2012

GOR'2012 Poster Presentation

I'm going to be presenting a poster at the General Online Research (GOR'2012) conference in Mannheim, Germany.

The poster is titled “Thinking, Planning & Operationalizing Empirical Mixed Methods Research Design” and it draws upon my Ph.D. dissertation research on member participation in virtual communities.

The rationale for communicating the methodological aspects of my dissertation is primarily to explicate the practice of mixed methods research design and to highlight the various stages comprising an empirical research project. Toward this, the poster content is delineated through four junctures of a mixed methods project – designated as the four Ps: Purpose, Plan, Process & Product.

Since the poster is based on a real-world research project, it provides examples of decisions, options, tools and techniques that were used through the various stages of my research. I’m hoping that the poster will provide some functional suggestions to those who are interested in mixed methods research. As a doctoral student who was just getting started with mixed methods research, I often found myself perplexed about issues of coming up with compelling research design, operational data collection mechanisms, credible & effective analysis techniques, and logical integration between qualitative & quantitative methods. In all likelihood, there may be other researchers with similar questions and I’m hoping that the poster will provide useful insights and perhaps some fodder for aspiring mixed methods researchers.

If you saw the poster at the conference or here, I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts or getting some feedback. Feel free to comment below or email me or connect with me on twitter.