• Our research questions are often exploratory – previously unknown phenomena, relationships, and structures are to be uncovered.
• We often deal with complex constellations of care – human and structural influencing factors work together.
• Access to the field is sometimes a challenge for us – reaching the people we want to research.
• We mostly conduct research in the quantitative domain with small convenience samples – these are not representative, and the data are rarely normally distributed.
• Our quantitative data mostly have a nominal (e.g., gender) or ordinal (e.g., level of education) scale level.
• Sometimes we research with vulnerable, i.e., particularly vulnerable groups of people – research ethics considerations are therefore central.
• We research with different groups of people, e.g., with nursing professionals, people with dementia, or caregivers of people with dementia – we adapt the data collection methods to each target group.

Our task in light of these particularities is to select suitable research methods. This way, we can ensure the quality of research at the Witten site.

Quantitative methods are used to collect empirical data. For example, observations are collected using a questionnaire instrument and documented with numerical data or numerical values. These are processed using statistical methods in order to test hypotheses or gain new insights.

We mainly use questionnaire instruments to record concepts (e.g. types of care facilities for people with dementia in Germany). Structuring multivariate analysis methods enable us to analyze relationships between more than two variables/between many questions in a questionnaire. This allows us to further develop the theoretical concepts empirically, which enables us, for example, to make a meaningful distinction between forms of care.

To investigate the effectiveness of complex interventions (e.g. the effect of environmental design on residents' behavior), we use methods that can be better adapted to the conditions in care facilities in addition to traditional statistical methods, which usually require the calculation of a sample and an experimental design (intervention group, control group). One example of this is methods that work with logic by checking which constellations of conditions must be present for a certain result to occur

We use qualitative methods when we want to understand phenomena in dementia-specific care and support. Important subject areas are, for example, facts and processes in organizations (e.g. structures of interprofessional cooperation), subjective views of people (e.g. symptom experience of people with dementia), interactions between people (e.g. between a person with dementia and a relative), practices (e.g. use of social robots) and knowledge systems (e.g. public discussion of dementia). Qualitative methods are also used to supplement quantitative studies, e.g. not only to measure how effective an intervention is, but also to understand the mode of action in detail in the given context. We also use qualitative methods as part of process evaluations, e.g. to investigate the implementation of an intervention in a care facility.

Depending on the subject, question and target group, a wide range of qualitative social research methods are available. For example, various forms of interviews, (video) observations or the collection of documents are used to collect data. The evaluation methods also depend on the subject matter and the research question and are aimed more at descriptive analysis, e.g. of topics in focus group interviews, or more at interpretive analysis, e.g. of figures of meaning in narrative interviews.

The MethodenForum Witten offers a place for methodological reflection in qualitative dementia-specific nursing and care research beyond the location.

Throughout the entire research process, from planning to publication, we provide support with our expertise in the organization of data and the implementation of data collection, processing and archiving. We train researchers on site in the handling of all types of data and advise on data protection issues.

As part of research data management, we are working on making qualitative research data available for future research projects. This type of data, usually audio or video recordings of people in their care environment, is often restricted to primary research due to its sensitivity and the high level of protection required under data protection law. The publication and provision of data required by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and research funding is therefore largely restricted.

In view of the effort involved in data collection, the difficulty of accessing the field and the high level of scientific interest in this valuable data, we are interested in processes and measures that can be used to archive this data in the long term and make it accessible to others.