Time in Mixed Methods Longitudinal Research: working across written narratives and large scale panel survey data to investigate attitudesto volunteering

This chapter focuses on how mixed-methods researchers can conceptualise and analyse time and the life-course when reusing longitudinal qualitative and quantitative data sources. Specifically, it addresses the methodological and analytical challenges involved in undertaking a mixed-method, longitudinal, research project that reused qualitative and quantitative secondary data to investigate individual attitudes towards voluntarism between 1981 and 2012. Discussing the project’s research design, its mixed-method analyses, and the key learning points of this mixed-method process, the chapter poses a series of key questions. Were the longitudinal qualitative and quantitative datasets used compatible and able to be mixed? What were the roles and relationships between the qualitative and quantitative analyses, did one facilitate the other? Does a mixed-method approach work when researching time and the life-course? The chapter examines some of the challenges involved in longitudinal mixed-method research, notably in ensuring a good fit between data sources, and between analyses. However it also highlights the value of using this approach, where the respective weaknesses of each analytical methodology were offset by their joint strengths to enable a multi-dimensional, comprehensive understanding of time and the life-course in the context of understanding British voluntarism