©Julia Knop
Lecture Professor Laban Peter Ayiro "Mixed Methods or the Mixing of Methods?"
The Interconnectedness of Research Possibilities in Qualitative and Quantitative Methods
07. Jun
Professor Laban Peter Ayiro, Vice-Chancellor of Daystar University, Nairobi is Associate Fellow at the Leuphana Institute for Advanced Studies (LIAS) in Culture and Society. During his stay in Lüneburg, he will give a lecture on his research area of research methods and statistics.
Professor Peter Laban Ayiro, Vice-Chancellor of Daystar University, Nairobi introduced his home university to the audience and then spoke about his field of expertise. In doing so, he put forward the thesis that mixed-methods research is commonly defined as the combination and integration of qualitative and quantitative data. In his presentation, Ayiro argues that qualitative and quantitative data are fundamentally different, and this difference is not about words and numbers but about condensation and structure. As qualitative data are analysed with qualitative methods and quantitative data with quantitative methods, we cannot analyze one type of data with the other type of method. Quantitative data analysis can reveal new patterns, but these are always related to the existing variables, whereas qualitative data analysis can reveal new aspects that are hidden in the data. To consider data as quantitative or qualitative, we should judge these data as end products, not in terms of the process through which they come into being. Thus, quantitising qualitative data results in quantitative data and the analysis thereof is quantitative, not mixed, data analysis. For mixed data analysis, both real and non-quantified qualitative data and quantitative data are needed. As these quantitative data may be quantised qualitative data, the implication is that contrary to a common view, mixed methods research does not necessarily involve quantitative data collection.
Profile of Associate Fellow Laban Peter Ayrio