This textbook aims to encourage experimentation with tables and figures that integrate data from different sources, particularly during analysis. With over 50 examples of creative uses of joint and integrative displays from a variety of disciplines, the textbook provides the most comprehensive overview of integrated and joint displays available to date. Organized with chapters about each phase of the research process (planning, theoretical grounding, data collection, analysis, and reporting) the text aims to decenter the idea that tables and figures are exclusively a fixture of reporting.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Exploring Different Types of Visual Displays
Chapter 2: Embedding Visual Displays in Planning and Data Management
Chapter 3: Advancing Theory Development with Visual Displays
Chapter 4: Assembling and Generating Data
Chapter 5: Constructing Visual Displays to Advance Data Analysis
Chapter 6: Organizing Visual Displays to Communicate Findings and Tell a Larger Story
Related Publication: Creamer, E. G. (2021c). Leveraging an integrated visual display for case-based analysis in mixed methods research.International Journal of Qualitative Methods. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069211059000
Summary of Key Points by Chapter
Discovery: Generating Original Insight through a Process of Discovery
Introduction
Visual displays are not only a fixture of reporting. They can play a prominent role in analysis.
Planning
A mixed method research question can provide the organizational framework for a joint or integrated display.
Theory
Launching a research project with a theoretical framework or a sensitizing model does not mean that it cannot have an emergent element.
Assembling Data
A visual display can provide a framework for multi-dimensional sampling.
Analysis
Blended themes generated from integrated results matrices and meta-displays are an example of a mixed analytical procedure. Complex joint displays often incorporate mixing of data from more than one qualitative source.
Reporting
The number and type of visual displays that are showcased in a manuscript communicate a message to its consumers about its priorities that is above and beyond what is described in the text.
Theory. Promoting Theory Development and Refinement
Introduction
By engaging data or findings from different analytical procedures, a visual display can push an investigator to think more complexly about the multi-dimensionality or temporality of a construct, process, or phenomenon.
Planning
There is nothing more instrumental to quality than beginning a research project with a sensitizing model grounded in the literature.
Theory
Mixing through embedding occurs when core constructs or theoretical propositions are incorporated within and across visual displays.
Assembling Data
A sensitizing model can promote theoretical sensitivity by helping a researcher to identify promising leads to follow-up with additional sampling or analysis.
Analysis
A blended theme that integrates findings from different analytical procedures can elaborate a theoretical model or framework by adding a new construct or by raising questions about the relevance of a construct in all contexts.
Reporting
A series of inter-related visual displays can reinforce the centrality of a theoretical orientation.
Quality. Demonstrating Quality
Introduction
Visual displays draw attention to features of both the research process and its products.
Planning
Reflexivity about positionality can facilitate interaction on a team.
Theory
Visual displays can contribute to methodological transparency by exposing threats to validity.
Assembling Data
Design oriented tables provide a tool to systematically document the development and refinement of a coding scheme.
Analysis
An integrated results matrix or meta-analytic joint display contributes to quality by exposing the analytic logic and by documenting the amount and type of data available to support key findings.
Reporting
Internal cohesiveness or consistency between text and visual displays and across visual displays is an essential part of the evaluation of quality of research reporting. Inconsistency between the methods described in the text and those depicted by a procedural diagram is the most frequent threat to quality in mixed method reporting.
Complexity. Negotiating Dissonance and Complexity
Introduction
A visual display can introduce novel ways of thinking about a phenomenon by exposing patterns, relationships, and discontinuities between data and findings that are not accessible by words alone.
Planning
The most effective procedural diagram is one that summarizes the analytical process and how integration occurred.
Theory
Complex visual displays often serve more than one purpose.
Assembling Data
A sampling strategy, like maximum variation sampling, can be instrumental to exploring diversity and testing themes from a preliminary round of analysis.
Analysis
Complex displays are often multi-dimensional or multi-layered. Nevertheless, they communicate some order or sequence by virtue of the shape that is selected, the graphics and symbols that are inserted, and the way the data and/or findings are presented.
Reporting
Authors have a responsibility to construct visual displays in ways that reflect meaning-making, even within the context of complexity.
