The article titled, “Aging and the family-work link: A comparative analysis of two generations of Mexican women” sought to investigate the effects of aging in the Mexican population by examining two different generations (Blanco & Pacheco, 2009). The research question in the study focused on evaluating the family-work link, particularly the experiences of women in relation to an aging Mexican population by comparing two groups of participants.
The investigators adopted both qualitative and quantitative study designs to generate qualitative data relating to women’s life trajectories. The qualitative study was employed early in the research process to establish the relationship between work and family. The quantitative design was employed later to integrate the generated qualitative data into characteristics that can be compared (Blanco & Pacheco, 2009).
The investigators started with relatively broad questions that categorized the participants into those who had never engaged in extra-domestic work and those who had worked both before and after marriage. This was important in bringing out the aim and initial focus of the study. The investigators also gathered data concerning work-family link, thus refining the study and making it comprehensible.
Research questions in qualitative studies should be clearly and adequately substantiated in order to address the study and at the same time ensuring that the study is relevant.
In the article by Blanco and Pacheco (2009), the research question is well developed through an intensive literature review on the implications of aging on the population, the state of pension in Mexico, the role of families in taking care of the elderly, and the resulting family-work relationships. The investigators also took keen interest in contextualizing the study population in relation to aging in Mexico.
This demonstrated the effectiveness with which the study findings can be applied in the entire population. This also served to illustrate the life course dimension adopted in this study. In general, qualitative research studies are supposed to address well-defined research questions.
This is because the manner in which the research questions are designed exerts some influence on the manner in which literature review is conducted; whether to carry it out prior to commencing the study or after (Creswell, 1994). In this article, Blanco and Pacheco (2009) carried out an extensive literature review prior to the actual study.
Although this is fundamental in defining the research question, it is associated with shortcomings such as obstruction of the investigators from paying attention to the study content as the investigator cannot truly listen, observe and remain flexible to new concepts.
The choice of exploratory longitudinal qualitative methods as a study design is appropriate to the research question as brought out by these investigators. This is in general agreement with theoretical approaches in social sciences. Longitudinal methods are essential in tracking events over time. They, therefore, merge well with the research question that was designed to assess the process women undergo in their lives.
The purposeful nature of sample selection in this study also ensured that only participants with the defined criteria were included in the study, thus allowing the in-depth collection of the relevant data to answer the research question (Joubish et al., 2011). This method of sampling, however, does not allow a good number of people to participate.
The research question cannot, therefore, be tackled comprehensively to reflect the whole population. This limits the transferability of the study findings. The integration of quantitative data obtained through a retrospective survey of a large number of participants contributed in enhancing the generalizability of this study.
References
Blanco, M., & Pacheco, E. (2009). Aging and the family-work link: A comparative analysis of two generation of Mexican women. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 40(2), 143–166.
Creswell, J. W. (1994). Research design: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Joubish, M. F., Khurram, M. A., Ahmed, A., Fatima, S. T., & Haider, K. (2011). Paradigms and characteristics of a good qualitative research. World Applied Sciences Journal, 12(11), 2082-2087.