| Summary: | This paper discusses the methodological and logistical complexities that underpin multimethod,
multi-sited, multi-phased research with vulnerable communities. The project on which we
draw was a 3-year Australian government-funded, longitudinal and cross-sectional exploration of students
from refugee backgrounds (SfRBs) as they moved into, through and out of higher education
from three different contexts, educational pathways and localities in Australia. While all students
entering and participating in higher education may experience challenges, for SfRBs these are compounded
by their linguistic and cultural diversity, instability, possible trauma and disrupted schooling.
In the project presented in this article, these complexities and their relationships with transitions to
higher education were captured through diverse methods and methodologies at three research sites,
including longitudinal research with repeat interviews and cross-sectional, explorative methods. The
opportunities provided by this methodological approach far outweighed the ethical and practical difficulties
navigated by each of the research teams. The ‘thick’ data produced through prolonged and
repeat engagements with a small cohort of participants at one site were made richer through explorations
of differing social and geographical contexts across all three sites. Further, our collective interpretations
of the data were made more robust through the reciprocity and reflexivity inherent in
ethically researching with (not on) SfRBs and through multiple cross-site research team interactions.
Introduction
In order to make meaning of complex and dynamic phenomena like the transitions
people make over time and space, a commensurately dynamic and flexible research
design is required. In the case of educational transitions, the changes that students
experience can include moving between educational levels (with their attendant practices,
procedures, expectations and epistemologies), between geographic spaces,
social networks, disciplines, modules and relationships. It is therefore important to
develop rich pictures of how students experience their transitions because these
changes in the student’s lives can significantly impact on their sense of self, on their
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