ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the mixed-methods approach undertaken for the study—Adapted Explanatory Sequential Design—and the importance of a phenomenological approach to the research. The procedures for the quantitative and qualitative approaches are presented, including a review of the quantitative dataset, qualitative protocol, and analytic procedures. Notably, this chapter conveys how study participants experience their lives not just as students, but also as children and workers, brothers and sisters, friends and community members. There is also a discussion of how constructs in both the quantitative and qualitative components are derived (e.g., constructs of socioeconomic status) as well as adaptations to the qualitative component study procedures to COVID-19 restrictions. The latter opened alternative avenues for conducting research that both imposed constraints on the original design (e.g., closures that cancelled the possibility of in-person interviews on participants’ campuses) and opened up new opportunities to explore the complexities of lives lived under restrictive shock conditions (i.e., opportunity to obtain participant insights on navigating online learning and the dynamics of relationship building in remote learning arrangements).
