Define Exploratory Sequential Design and describe “American Indian Homicide” case study from our text.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

As noted above, some mixed-methods designs begin with a qualitative method to explore a phenomenon and then proceed with a quantitative method for confirmatory purposes. This is referred to as an exploratory sequential design. This was the design used by Bachman (1992) when studying the social causes of homicide within contemporary American Indian communities. Although other researchers had noted high rates of American Indian homicide, virtually no attempts had been made to explore the factors that contributed to such high rates. Are the causal mechanisms that create these high rates the same as those that were documented in the population in general? Or are the social forces that were identified as increasing both African American and white homicide rates different from those forces that contribute to American Indian homicide? Because there was virtually no research examining the social factors related to American Indian homicide, Bachman first wanted to gain some insight and understanding of the structural and cultural conditions that may contribute to lethal violence at the individual level. Accordingly, she selected the qualitative method of intensive interviewing as her first method. Bachman conducted face-to-face interviews with homicide offenders at three Midwestern state prisons. Offenders responded to a lengthy set of open-ended questions and probes concerning the circumstances surrounding their crime, their life before the crime, and their attitudes about crime in general. Thus, she started with inductive research, beginning with qualitative interview data, which were then used to develop (induce) a general explanation (a theory) to account for the data.
The theoretical model that emerged from her interview data is displayed in Exhibit 11.3. The model demonstrates the causal forces of social disorganization, economic deprivation, a culture of honor or violence, and the psychological mechanisms of culture conflict and perceived powerlessness with the intervening variable of alcohol or drug abuse. Also included in the theoretical guide is the antecedent variable to each of these concepts: internal colonialism. Although this concept was not explicitly derived from the qualitative analysis, Bachman (1992) explained, “No model explaining any phenomenon with regard to American Indians would be complete without acknowledgment of the colonization process to which our government has subjected this population”