ABSTRACT
The goal of this chapter is to highlight how researchers might come to understand, utilize, and analyze mixed message data more purposefully and with greater complexity. Through the critique of a longitudinal research project, the chapter addresses confounding elements of data analysis – both qualitative and quantitative methods – and how they can push researchers to bring a deeper and more nuanced reflection to research. The author recommends that researchers lean into the analysis of the data, and, perhaps more significantly, into the surprising and contradictory details that can muddy the story of a research event. The case study examined within this chapter is from a longitudinal research project that centers on a state-mandated summer reading intervention program set in rural South Carolina, a state located in the southeastern United States.
