Explanatory Example

Research Question: How effective is a smoking cessation intervention?

Design Component 1: A quantitative evaluation of a smoking cessation intervention found that the intervention was only weakly effective. Subgroup analyses revealed that the intervention was less effective for people that had been smoking for more than 15 years.

Intermediary question: However, it was unclear from the quantitative evaluation data why the intervention did not appear to work for the long-term smokers.

Design Component 2: A qualitative component was added to the study in which the researchers conducted qualitative interviews with the long-term smokers from the intervention to further explore why the intervention didn’t work for them.

Insight: From this explanatory mixed methods design, they generated a new insight which was that long-term smokers expressed a belief that because they had not yet suffered any adverse consequences from smoking, that they were unlikely to incur them in the future. This undermined their motivation to implement the skills obtained from the intervention in their real lives.