Nothing is more central to mixed methods research than strategies that allow for the alignment of data from different sources during analysis. Visualizations of different kinds, from timelining, to mapping, or different forms of matrices are instrumental to the process.

Any educational program or activity designed to promote a measure of mental health or physical well-being has a time element that often varies between points in time where there is forward progress and others where there is little or no progress or even, possibly, regression. Whether it is about improving a skill in math or recovery from some type of traumatic event, timelines can be instrumental in research about an intentionally designed activity. Timelining is often thought of as an example of graphic elicitation that is part of the arsenal of strategies associated with qualitative research.  These can be collected at one point of time or at multiple points of time to help participants reflect on patterns in a trajectory or speculate about what was occurring at the time that might influence. In a mixed methods context, a researcher can use timelines for purposes of analysis by overlaying quantitative indicators or to cluster groups with similar patterns to detect differences and similarities.

 This post provides a link to a brief, 2-page summary posted to Academia, of some uses of timelining in mixed methods research. This entry extracts two examples of timelining reviewed in a chapter from the book, Visual Displays in Qualitative and Mixed Methods Research (Creamer, 2024). One derives from research in an educational context and the second is about individual progress in a drug rehabilitation program. Each illustrates how a visualization or graphic can be at the core of meaningful integration of qualitative and quantitative data during analysis in mixed methods research. Each demonstrates how a visualization or graphics can promote the ability the experiment with different ways to align data to detect patterns and relationships. Additional resources and examples are listed at the end of the entry. 

Data Collection Strategies

Approaches to collecting data that link a quantitative measure(s) and participant observations include:

• Participants maintain or submit online on a regular basis.
• A participant and researcher meet and construct through conversation, sometimes at regular intervals.
• A researcher constructs, plotting both qualitative and quantitative data on a timeline.

A You Tube video of mine illustrates a simple way to spot changes of time by plotting qualitative data in a simple matrix (https://youtu.be/ngY7lmPxRxo). 

MMR Approaches to Timelining

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