Gemma Crous gemma.crous@gmail.com Universitat de Girona (Catalunya, Spain) ERIDIQV research team The Hebrew University, Jerusalem October 11th 2015
Studies with children and adolescents In this area of research we can find 2 ways to study what is important to Children s and Adolescents lives: QUANTITATIVE METHODS Questionnaires QUALITATIVE METHODS Interviews, focus groups, etc. Quite young studies Large amounts of information about one topic, from big samples Large databases with information from Children and Adolescents: - PISA (education) - HBSC (health) - Children s Worlds (SWB) More detail about some aspects from children s life Really focused Not big amounts of participants 2 Different Worlds? Last years, some authors are talking about mixed-method research to be able to: - Combine big samples with small groups of qualitative information to be able to deepen in one topic - Still not lots of experiences
To begin with... Focus of the communication methodological design of my PhD project Epistemological premise Children and adolescents are key informants and experts of their own life
The aim of the PhD To explore and understand what contributes to a fully satisfactory life according to children s and adolescents point of view from 9 to 17-years-old EUDAIMONIC OR PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING
Theoretical and epistemological approach (I) In the study of well-being from the positive psychology view, there are 2 traditions or perspectives: HEDONISM: The tradition is from the happiness tradition with the positive and negative affects (Bradburn, 1969) and the satisfaction perspective (Cantril, 1965). So it s a tradition focused on the study of the subjective well-being (SWB). Satisfaction and happiness are considered to be hedonic aspects of a good life. EUDAIMONIA: The tradition derives from Aristotle s philosophy about happiness, and the intellectual traditions from the XXI century, including the Humanistic Psychology. The focus is the study of the psychological well-being (PWB). Self-fulfilment and having goals in life are considered eudemonic aspects of a good life. The two together compose the Optimal well-being (Ryan & Deci, 2001).
Theoretical and epistemological approach (II) Some authors who studied or are studying PWB: Ryff & Singer PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING SCALE (Self-acceptance, personal growth, autonomy, relationships, environmental mastery, purpose in life and relatedness). Waterman, Schwartz & Conti PEAQ (Personal Expressive Activities Questionnaire). Bauer, McAdams & Pals Eudaimonia = understand the pleasure + sense of significance + psychosocial integration in the personal comprehension. Ryan & Deci SDT (Self-determination theory: autonomy, relatedness and competence) Keyes Flourishing. However, previous research of psychological well-being pointed out that most of the studies about this topic don t have a robust theoretical frame. This entire panorama presents a difficulty to construct instruments to evaluate the eudemonic well-being and clearly explain the results. There are some instruments that have been created and used to measure eudemonic well-being with adults: Purpose In Life Scale (PIL) of Crumbaugh and Maholick (1969) Flourishing Scale of Diener et al. (2009) Personal Growth (PG) of Vittersø et al. (2009) Scale of Psychological Well-Being of Ryff (1989)
Methodological Mixed Approach a) Quantitative data collection, both cross-sectional and longitudinal Questionnaires b) Qualitative data collection, both cross-sectional and longitudinal Individual interviews & Focus groups c) Qualitative & Quantitative Analysis Data Triangulation
TOTAL: 940 participants Methodological Approach - Quantitative data collection PROCEDURE AND PARTICIPANTS: Year 5 primary school (10yo) Year 6 primary school (11yo) Year 1 secondary school (12yo) Year 2 secondary school (13yo) Year 3 secondary school (14yo) Year 4 secondary school (15yo) 1st Cohort (177 participants) 2nd Cohort (154 participants) 3rd Cohort (229 participants) 4th Cohort (174 participants) 5th Cohort (206 participants)
Methodological Approach - Quantitative data collection INSTRUMENTS: Fully satisfactory life Subjective Well-Being Openness to experience Optimism 28 (27) items on how important different things are to have a fully satisfactory life (Casas et al., 2009) + 2 items Other things (qualitative) - Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) (Diener, 1994) - Personal Well-being Index (PWI) (Cummins, 1998; Cummins et al., 2003) - Brief Multidimensional Students Life Satisfaction Scale (BMSLSS) (Huebner, 1994) Life Orientation Test (LOT-R) (Scheier, Carver & Bridges, 1994) 2 dimensions of the Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire Revised (EATQ-R) (Ellis & Rothbart, 2001) - Pleasure Sensitivity - Perceptual Sensitivity Focus groups: High and low scores Individual interviews: High and low scores of each variable ANALYSIS: The punctuation means of each item for each school year SPSS 19
Methodological Approach - Quantitative data collection A fully satisfactory life: Knowing many people love me Having more money than needed Being convinced that life has an objective Appreciating nature Feeling connected with a supreme power (only for Year 3 and Year 4 of secondary school) Thinking that there is something more after death Practicing a religion Not fearing loneliness Being happy Feeling I make other people happy Having a good time Having what I wish for Doing everything that I want to Feeling I am useful to other people Having power over the other people Having new experiences
TOTAL: 108 participants aprox. Methodological approach - Qualitative data collection PROCEDURE AND PARTICIPANTS: Highest scores 1 girl and 1 boy from the 5 th Cohort Optimism INDIVIDUAL INTERVIEWS (8) Openness to experience Lowest scores Highest scores Lowest scores 1 girl and 1 boy from the 5 th Cohort 1 girl and 1 boy from the 5 th Cohort 1 girl and 1 boy from the 5 th Cohort 1 st Cohort (10 participants) 2 nd Cohort (10 participants) Highest scores 3 rd Cohort (10 participants) 4 th Cohort (10 participants) FOCUS GROUPS (10) SWB 5 th Cohort (10 participants) 1 st Cohort (10 participants) 2 nd Cohort (10 participants) Lowest scores 3 rd Cohort (10 participants) 4 th Cohort (10 participants) 5 th Cohort (10 participants)
Methodological approach - Qualitative data collection INSTRUMENTS AND ANALYSIS: Topic addressed: WELL BEING 1) Description of well-being 2) Relation between some aspects and well-being: Area of living Technologies The sense of life Mindfulness Optimism Openness to experience and living new experiences The past, the present and the future Religion and spirituality
Methodological approach - Qualitative data collection ANALYSIS: Using QSR NVivo10 Organise information from focus groups and individual interviews using different categories: 28 items on how important different things are to have a fully satisfactory life (Casas et al., 2009) Additional items. Adding more categories when participants suggest ideas or aspects that have a relation with eudaimonia.
Methodological approach Data triangulation SOME THEORETICAL APPROACHES Mixed methods are in our everyday lives. Mixed design includes at least one quantitative method (collecting numbers) and one qualitative method (collecting words) (Greene, Caracelli and Graham, 1989) Mixed methods is a new methodological orientation with its own worldview, vocabulary and techniques (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2003) Mixed methods are used for the purposes of breadth and depth of understanding and corroboration (Johnson, Onwuegbuzie & Turner, 2007) Quantitative and qualitative approaches used on the same study provides a better understanding of research problems, than either approach alone (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007) Mixed methods are the multiple ways of seeing, hearing and making sense of the social world (Greene, 2007)
Methodological approach Data triangulation 4 forms to combine results from different methodologies: (Greene, Caracelli & Graham, 1989) Initiation It looks for new perspectives of frameworks from different methodologies. It s useful to increase the breadth and depth of inquiry results and interpretations by analyzing them from the different perspectives of different paradigms. Triangulation It seeks convergence, corroboration or contrast of results from the different methods. It s useful to increase the validity of constructs an inquiry results. Complementarity It seeks elaboration, illustration and clarification of the results from the other method. It s useful to increase the interpretability and meaningfulness of constructs. Development It uses results from one method to help develop or inform the other method (sampling implementation, measurement decisions, etc.) Expansion It extends the breadth and range of inquiry by using different methods from different inquiry components. 4 forms of triangulation: (Denzin, 1970) Data triangulation Consists in one body of data formed by information from some different sources. Investigator triangulation consists in the use of multiple observers to collect and interpret data. Theoretical triangulation consists in the use of several theoretical positions in order to interpret data. Methodological triangulation consists in the use of more than one research method or more than one technique to collect data.
Methodological approach Data triangulation OUR ANALYSIS: how did we use mixed methods? 1 2 3 4 Collect quantitative data (questionnaires) Detect different profiles or groups depending on our variables: highest/lowest scores of SWB and highest/lowest scores of optimism and openness to experience Use the profiles detected to organise focus groups (+/- SWB) and individual interviews (+/- openness to experience & +/- optimism) Collect qualitative data (focus groups and individual interviews) Analyse quantitative and qualitative results separately: a) The means of each item for each scholar year b) The categories of the qualitative answers QUANTI QUANTI QUALI BOTH 5 6 Compare and contrast qualitative and quantitative answers: Do they complement each other? Do they add some information? Is it the same or different information? Use the variable age or school year to analyse data. x2 MIXED MIXED
Methodological approach Data triangulation OUR ANALYSIS: how can the results be analysed? (Remember: We always integrate means with categories) Year of administration 1st 2nd SWB s Scores Highest + Lowest - Highest + Lowest - Year 5 Primary (10 yo) Year 6 Primary (11 yo) ITEM Year 1 Secondary (12 yo) School Year Year 2 Secondary (13 yo) Year 3 Secondary (14 yo) M= / SD= M= / SD= M= / SD= M= / SD= M= / SD= Year 4 Secondary (15 yo) M= / SD= M= / SD= M= / SD= M= / SD= M= / SD= Let s see some preliminary results! Participants talked about it and they think it is important to have a fully satisfactory life Participants talked about it and they think it is not important to have a fully satisfactory life
Preliminary results (I)
Preliminary results (II)
Preliminary results (III)
Preliminary results (IV)
Preliminary results (V)
Preliminary results (VI)
Preliminary results (VII) Participants talked about some aspects that could be interesting to measure their psychological wellbeing. Moreover, some of them are being considered important for the measure of PWB on adults. Year of administration 1st School Year Year 5 Primary Year 6 Primary Year 1 Secondary Year 2 Secondary Year 3 Secondary Year 4 Secondary Feeling free (parental control) (-) Possibility to decide and choose (-) Feeling free (parental control) (+/- ) Possibility to decide and choose (-) Feeling free (parental control & studies) (+/-) Feeling free (parental control & studies) (+/-) Possibility to decide and choose (-) More consciousness of life and reality (-) More consciousness of life and reality (+) Having responsibilities (-) Having responsibilities (-) Sense of life (+) Sense of life (+) Sense of life (+/-) 2nd Feeling free (parental control) (+/- ) Feeling free (parental control) (+) Possibility to decide and choose (+/-) Feeling free (parental control) (+/- ) Having responsibilities (+/-) Self-control (-) Feeling free (parental control) (+/- ) Possibility to decide and choose (+/-) More consciousness of life and reality (+) Having responsibilities (+/-) Economic independence (-) Sense of life (+/-)
Discussion (I) THE IMPORTANCE TO ASK CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS We think that from only asking children we can know and understand their reality and what is important for them. They are the main characters of their lives, so they are the best informers of them. Their results can be really different from the adults ones and also they can be totally surprising from an adult perspective. Taking into account what children and adolescents think about different aspects of the world is starting to be applied in some fields. For example: They can be witnesses in a juridical practice There are a few ways to let them participate in some political areas Some schools and high schools are doing different kind of activities to promote children s participation and motivate them to give their opinions about what concerns them However, there is a lot more to do, and lot more to fight for if we want to have equal rights and opportunities. A children s or adolescents opinion nowadays does not the same value as an adult s one in our society; but they should. We can start from the research world and give them more opportunities and occasions to speak and decide. Only through listening to them we will be able to understand their world and their thoughts. Children s opinions are important to take into account to design and apply interventions with kids, especially when they have the final aim to promote their well-being and their quality of life. We won t be able to improve their happiness if we don t ask them what s important for them and what could help them, from their own perspective.
WHY DID WE USE MIXED-METHODOLOGY? Discussion (II) Depending on the objectives of the study, one kind of methodology is better than another one. Different types of mixed methods can accomplish different aims: To see if 2 types of data show similar results but from different perspectives. Using qualitative data to help explain quantitative results Using information given by participants about one topic to design the quantitative instruments, and in turn administer the instrument to a sample Using qualitative information to improve and design and intervention, treatment or evaluation, which later will be tested by a quantitative instrument It s important to provide a justification for the use of mixed methods research. Most of the instruments to measure happiness and well-being are scales that do not permit comments or written/oral descriptions. This could be considered a limitation, especially when the perspective is not totally developed and it could integrate less traditional concepts. We choose the mixed-methods research because of the lack of information about psychological well-being with children and adolescents. When we begin from nearly zero information about what s important to take into account to measure children s psychological well-being, we have to ask the main characters: children.
Discussion (III) OUR EXPERIENCE WITH MIXED-METHODOLOGY Children s qualitative and quantitative data integrated analysis (triangulation) has not been very frequent in the scientific literature and still lacks consolidated traditions. Therefore we have adopted some experts knowledge, but we have also needed to ground our research team s past experience, reflections and debates. For example, some focus groups were conducted, and with the answers and also some experts knowledge the fully satisfactory life scale has been designed. According to some previous research, the idea of a fully satisfactory life seems to be well understood by adolescents, and additionally the answers to these kinds of questions seem to capture both hedonic and eudaimonic aspects of their lives. However, it certainly still involves an abstract and complex approach - and the lack of previous experience raising such questions to children and adolescents makes its important to check whether each age group understands the question and whether it is understood in different ways, according the developmental stage. For that reason, we decided that this research requires collecting very different kinds of data. Our research design is applicable to many other topics to be researched with children, including child maltreatment.
Some final questions How can we improve this methodological procedure? Any new ideas? How do you triangulate or integrate qualitative and quantitative data in your research (if you do it)? Do you think that it is important to apply mixed-methods research with children? Could this procedure be used in Child Maltreatment studies?
Thank you for your attention!!