An ingredient to innovation are creative mixed methods researchers
Hello everyone, in my previous blog post “Why Mixed-Methods Research is Challenging?” I briefly introduced the differences between qualitative and quantitative research methodologies as two opposing philosophies about how knowledge is generated. For applied researchers, we need to also be in touch with our creative juices as we design mix-method studies.
Most non-researchers in disciplines like engineering, marketing, business, human resources, etc., throughout their education are trained to use deductive reasoning (scientific method) to learn about the world and approach a problem or a question, and while numbers are important, unfortunately, deductive reasoning alone constrains creative thought.
The researcher Carol Steiner found that most innovative researchers take leap away from from deductive reasoning. In beautiful words she described it this way:
“Leaping away from the ‘scientific method’ has allowed researchers to understand themselves as other than knowledge-makers. Consequently, they often project an openness that allows a different world to shine through for them, the public world”
(Steiner, 1999, p. 594, emphasis in original).
In German language, there is a concept of empathy known as “Einfühlung” which means “in-feeling” or “feeling into” — this concept describes the human capacity to enter a piece of art, music, symbolisms, just about any human created artifact to feel the emotions and knowledge that the artist had worked to represent. Einfühlung adds a wonderful dimension to empathy because those artifacts increase our ability to engage with the world around us. (Karla McLaren’s)
The process of conducting effective research is just like producing art. Artists observe different landscapes and learn from every single angle and build an inner vision than it becomes a beautiful canvas. Artists are the medium of communication of between those worlds. It is the same liberation, I have experienced when I show to my stakeholders and engineers “artifacts” to make them “feel” for their customers. It is a mindset that is open, exploratory, and curious.
Our stakeholders are unfamiliar with our perspectives and it is natural for them to ask for scale and causation through customer focus quantitative data.
Our job is to also help our stakeholders luxuriate in the people they are making things for. Give them permission to experience einfühlung for their customers.Show how participants come to believe a certain thing of their products. Show how the frequency when a thing happened. Describe the workarounds or “hacks” users do to get to their goals. Tell them how many people. Explain why users are NOT making the so-called “easy” or “obvious” choices when utilizing their products or services. Do your best to tell your story with numbers and quotes from your users to paint your canvas. This will lead to stakeholders being more attuned to both the objectivist and constructivist approach. This is a key ingredient to innovation itself. (Kanter, 2006, p. 79). Mixing qual and quant is spanning all the core competencies of innovation.
Designers might recognize this process as the “double-diamond” the process of convergence and divergence where they begin their projects by exploring widely and then converge into applicable ideas. It is an agile mind. Applied researchers must develop this same agility to flip between qualitative and quantitative. Roger Martin, an Innovation expert called this the “opposable mind,” (Martin, 2007) and highlighted that it is abductive logic (not deductive or inductive) characterizes true innovators. Mixed methods researchers are a little like all kinds of innovators: they can think in different ways on command.
Just like designers, applied researchers need to respond to constrains like timelines, budgets and resources. Just like designers, we can use these constraints to inspire themselves to create innovative solutions.
