Research on older families when more than one member responds: Producing and interpreting findings

This article draws on data collected from a very old parent and two of her or his adult children in 20 older families to show how different strategies for analyzing data produce different images of families. The findings produced by means of five different analytical techniques are presented and compared. The degree to which each captures the reality of these older families is evaluated. The intent of the article is not to present findings but to show how different methods of data colletion and anlaysis create different images of older families.