Mixed Methods for research

 

Introduction

One of the things I’ve learnt recently is about research methodologies and their different strengths and weaknesses. Understanding these can be very helpful as they can focus the research and allow you to develop a plan. However, before diving deeper into this, let’s define two terms we will use throughout this post: quantitative and qualitative.

Quantitative – The oxford dictionary defines quantitative as relating to, measuring, or measuring by the quantity of something rather than its quality. In short, Quantitative is understood as numerical rather than based on ‘qualities’.

Qualitative – Relates to ‘qualities’, such as colours, shapes, and sounds. In the research context, it will usually mean interviews with or accounts from research participants.

Mixed Methods Research

Some subjects lend themselves very heavily towards either qualitative or quantitative research methods. For example, papers in physics will usually use quantitative research methods. Alternatively, humanities subjects will be more likely to use qualitative research methods.

The advantages of qualitative methods are that they are easy to interpret and, in the purest forms, produce highly reliable and precise results. The disadvantage of them is that the further you go from strictly STEM subjects, the harder to collect and the less reliable the data will become. On the other hand, testing the properties of a given material is relatively straightforward; you can analyse its composition and get a real sense of what you are trying. But what about when the test you need to do is challenging to repeat? What if the environment of your experiment cannot easily be controlled?

Qualitative methods have the opposite problem; they are easy and can be done in various environments, but they are challenging to take concrete conclusions from.

Mixed methods combine qualitative and quantitative approaches to strengthen the overall quality of research.

Sequential Methods

Sequential methods are where you do either a Qualitative or Quantitative stage of the research and then follow it up with the other.

Sequential explanatory

Here the Quantitative phase happens, and then the Qualitative phase after.

An example would be giving students from different schools a test, interviewing students from either school about the test they took, and seeing if you could find any link between the two.

This method aims to strengthen the quantitative data with qualitative data.

Sequential exploratory

The opposite of Sequential exploratory. An example would be asking children from two different schools how they felt about the teaching in their school and then asking them to perform a test to see if their perspective fed into their results.

This method allows you to develop an instrument or theory based on the qualitative results and then test it.

Concurrent Methods

Concurrent methods aim to do both the Qualitative and Quantitative elements simultaneously and then analyse them together. There are two types of concurrent methods.

Concurrent Triangulation

This method allows for both the Quantitative and Qualitative elements to be done simultaneously. After both have been completed, they are compared and analysed together. In concurrent triangulation, neither aspect is more important.

Concurrent Nested

This method will have both the Quantitative and Qualitative elements to be done at the same time as well. However, in concurrent nested, one of the two dominates while the other is incorporated or ‘nested’ in the first.

An example of this would be again testing the scores of children in different schools but doing several tests and interviewing them between each one. Here the testing would be the dominant element of the experiment, but the interviews would flesh out that data a little more.

Transformative designs

There are other methods known as Transformative methods. For example, there can be both Sequential Transformative and Concurrent Transformative. They differ from the methods above because they focus on some social justice goals within the design. I haven’t mentioned this much because I’m not sure they are particularly relevant to my project.

So that’s mixed methods research design. Next week I will relate this and the previous blog posts to flesh out a plan for my project.