MIXED METHODS APPROACHES TO INCREASING OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF OLDER ADULTS

This presentation will explain how quantitative data in two studies with a mixed methods design were used to better understand the intended meaning of participants’ responses in semi-structured interviews. In the first study, 17 community-dwelling older adults answered questions about their experience of aging in place and completed several quantitative measures. Analysis of the interview transcripts employed a phenomenological-hermeneutic strategy; participants’ responses to the quantitative measures were then used to inform further interpretations of their answers. In the second study, 40 nursing home residents answered questions about their interpersonal day-to-day social interactions and interpersonal relationships. A thematic analysis of their responses was followed by additional analyses using data from measures of social cognition, as well as nursing staff’s ratings of their social behavior. In both studies, several widely-held assumptions about the nature of older adults’ lived experience—for example, that loneliness and boredom are commonplace—are belied by the findings.