PHILOSOPHY OF MIXED METHOD

PHILOSOPHY OF MIXED METHOD

By, Hanafi Pelu (181061001001)

A.  Background

Mixed methods research (mixed research is a synonym) as the natural complement to traditional qualitative and quantitative research, to present pragmatism as offering unattractive philosophical partner for mixed methods re-search, and to provide a framework for designing and conducting mixed methods research. In doing this, we briefly review the paradigm "wars" and incompatibility thesis, we show some commonalities between quantitative and qualitative research, we explain the tenets of pragmatism, we explain the fundamental principle of mixed research and how to apply it, we provide specific sets of designs for the two major types of mixed methods research (mixed-model de-signs and mixed-method designs), and, finally, we explain mixed methods research as following (recursively) an eight-step process. A key feature of mixed methods research is its methodological pluralism or eclecticism, which frequently results in superior research (com-pared to mono method research). Mixed methods research will be successful as more investigators study and help advance its concepts and as they regularly practice it.

Mixed methods research offers great promise for practicing researchers who would like to see methodologists’ describe and develop techniques hat are closer to what researchers actually use in practice. Mixed methods research as the third research paradigm can also help bridge the schism between quantitative and qualitative research (Onwuegbuzie&Leech, 2004a). Methodological or on the mixed methods research paradigm can be seen in several recent books (Brewer & Hunter, 1989; Creswell, 2003; Greene, Caracelli, & Graham, 1989; Johnson & Christensen, 2004; Newman & Benz, 1998; Reichardt & Rallis, 1994; Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998, 2003). Much work remains to be undertaken in the area of mixed methods research regarding its philosophically positions, designs, data analysis, validity strategies, mixing and integration procedures, and rationales, among other things. We will try to clarify the most important issues in the remainder of this article.

For more than a century, the advocates of quantitative and qualitative research paradigms have engaged in ardent dispute. 1 from these debates, purists have emerged on both sides (cf. Campbell & Stanley, 1963; Lincoln & Guba, 1985).

 Quantitative purists (Ayer, 1959; Maxwell & Delaney, 2004; Popper, 1959; Schrag, 1992) articulate assumptions that are consistent with what is commonly called a positivist philosophy. That is, quantitative purists believe that social observations should be treated as entities in much the same way that physical scientists treat physical phenomena. Further, they contend that the observer is separate from the entities that are subject to observation.

Quantitative purists maintain that social science inquiry should be objective. That is, time- and context-free generalizations (Nagel, 1986) are desirable and possible, and real causes of social scientific outcomes can be determined reliably and validly.

According to this school of thought, educational re-searchers should eliminate their biases, remain emotionally detached and uninvolved with the objects of study, and test or empirically justify their stated hypotheses. These researchers have traditionally called for rhetorical neutrality, involving a formal writing style using the impersonal passive voice and technical terminology, in which establishing and describing social laws is the major focus (Tashakkori&Teddlie, 1998).

Qualitative purists (also called constructivists and interpretivists) reject what they call positivism. They argue for the superiority of constructivism, idealism, relativism, humanism, hermeneutics, and, sometimes, postmodernism (Guba&Lincoln, 1989; Lincoln & Guba, 2000; Schwandt, 2000; Smith, 1983, 1984). These purists contend that multiple-constructed realities abound, that time- and context-free generalizations are neither desirable nor possible, that research is value-bound, that it is impossible to differentiate fully causes and effects, that logic flows from specific to general (e.g., explanations are generated inductively from the data), and that knower and known cannot be separated because the subjective knower is the only source of reality (Guba, 1990).

Qualitative purists also are characterized by a dislike of a detached and passive style of writing, preferring, instead, detailed, rich, and thick (empathic) description, written directly and some-what informally. Both sets of purists view their paradigms as the ideal for re-search, and, implicitly if not explicitly, they advocate the in-compatibility thesis (Howe, 1988), which posits that qualitative and quantitative research paradigms, including their associated methods, cannot and should not be mixed. The quantitative versus qualitative debate has been so divisive that some graduate students who graduate from educational institutions with an aspiration to gain employment in the world of academia or re-search are left with the impression that they have to pledge allegiance to one research school of thought or the other. Guba (a leading qualitative purist) clearly represented the purist position when he contended that "accommodation between paradigms is impossible ... we are led to vastly diverse, disparate, and to-tally antithetical ends" (Guba, 1990, p. 81). A disturbing feature of the paradigm wars has been the relentless focus on the differences between the two orientations. Indeed, the two dominant research paradigms have resulted in two research cultures, "one professing the superiority of' deep, rich observational data' and the other the virtues of 'hard, generalizable' . . . data" (Sieber, 1973, p. 1335). Our purpose in writing this article is to present mixed methods research as the third research paradigm in educational re-search. We hope the field will move beyond quantitative versus qualitative research arguments because, as recognized by mixed methods research, both quantitative and qualitative researches are important and useful. The goal of mixed methods research is not to replace either of these approaches but rather to draw from the strengths and minimize the weaknesses of both in single research studies and across studies. If you visualize a continuum with qualitative research anchored at one pole and quantitative research anchored at the other, mixed methods research covers the large set of points in the middle area. If one prefers to think categorically, mixed methods researches sit in a new third chair, with qualitative research sitting on the left side and quantitative re-search sitting on the right side.

B.  Discussion

Mixed research actually has a long history in research practice because practicing researchers frequently ignore what is written by methodologists when they feel a mixed approach will best help them to answer their research questions. It is time that methodologists catch up with practicing researchers! It is now time that all researchers and research methodologists formally recognize the third research paradigm and begin systematically writing about it and using it. In general we recommend contingency theory for research approach selection, which accepts that quantitative, qualitative, and mixed research are all superior under different circumstances and it is the researcher's task to examine the specific contingencies and make the decision about which research approach, or which combination of approaches, should be used in a specific study. In this article we have outlined the philosophy of pragmatism, we have described mixed research and provided specific mixed-model and mixed-method designs, and we have discussed the fundamental principle of mixed research and provided tables of quantitative and qualitative research strengths and weaknesses to help apply the principle. Also, we have provided a mixed methods process model to help readers visualize the process. We hope we have made the case that mixed methods research is here to stay and that it should be widely recognized in education, as well as in our sister disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences, as the third major research paradigm.

As noted by Sechrest and Sidana (1995), growth in the mixed methods (i.e., pragmatist) movement has the potential to reduce some of the problems associated with singular methods. By utilizing quantitative and qualitative techniques within the same framework, mixed methods research can incorporate the strengths of both methodologies. Most importantly, investigators who conduct mixed methods research are more likely to select methods and approaches with respect to their underlying research questions, rather than with regard to some preconceived biases about which research paradigm should have hegemony in social science research. By narrowing the divide between quantitative and qualitative researchers, mixed methods research has a great potential to promote a shared responsibility in the quest for attaining accountability for educational quality. The time has come for mixed methods research.

During the last decades, the need to synthesize research evidence in order to inform policy makers, practitioners, and fellow scientists concerning the most recent developments on a certain topic has been recognized (Chalmers et al. 2002; Mays et al. 2005). Especially due to the Evidence-Based Practice Movement (EBP), systematic reviews are nowadays highly valued as they often form the basis for evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. As a result, several methods and techniques to systematically aggregate evidence have been (further) developed. Various terms (e.g., systematic review, integrative review, research synthesis, realist synthesis, qualitative review, narrative review, and meta-analysis) are used to describe different variants of the methods and techniques developed to synthesize empirical evidence (Forbes and Griffiths 2002; Major and Savin-Baden 2010; Pluye et al. 2009; Suri and Clarke 2009; Whittemore and Knafl 2005; Zimmer 2006).

Historically, two major approaches of research synthesis have been applied. First, a variety of qualitative synthesis methods—‘systematic review’, ‘narrative review’, ‘metastudy’, ‘meta-synthesis’, ‘meta-summary’, ‘meta-ethnography’, ‘grounded formal theory’, ‘aggregated analysis’—is used to generate new insights and understanding from interrelated qualitative research findings. Second, several statistical models and techniques (e.g., fixed and random effects models, and varying techniques to address heterogeneity and bias) are applied to conduct meta-analyses of quantitative research evidence. In addition to these two approaches, recently some pioneering work has been done concerning the mixed synthesis of various types of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed primary level research evidence (Harden and Thomas 2005, 2010; Pluye et al. 2009; Sandelowski et al. 2006; Voils et al. 2008).

A mixed methods research synthesis is a systematic review applying the principles of mixed methods research. As discussed by Creswell and Tashakkori (2007a), the latter implies that the study is not only expected to have two well-developed distinct strands, one qualitative and one quantitative, each complete with its own questions, data, analysis, and inferences, it must also integrate, link, or connect these strands in some way (see Bryman 2007). It is a systematic review, which means that it reviews available research data that has been systematically searched for, studied, assessed, and summarized according to predetermined, transparent, and rigorous criteria. In an MMRS the data that are integrated in the review are findings extracted from qualitative, quantitative, and mixed primary level articles. So, where in a primary level study the participants are people, in a synthesis level study the participants are primary level studies. Following the general definition of mixed methods research proposed by Johnson et al. (2007), we define an MMRS as a synthesis in which researchers combine qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods studies, and apply a mixed methods approach in order to integrate those studies, for the broad purposes of breadth and depth of understanding and corroboration.

C.  Conclusion

Mixed methods research is an opportunity that deflects attention away from theoretical work that is often specific to particular disciplines. Thus it may encourage thinking ‘outside the box’, a practice to be welcomed. On the other hand, we are seeing a growth in importance in the UK social sciences of substantive fields bringing together researchers across disciplinary boundaries. Increased funding has been allocated by ESRC to programmers of research that are defined in considerable part by particular substantive fields: for example, programmers on work, childhood, youth, migration, social exclusion. While there are undoubted benefits for the stakeholders and researchers in learning about and integrating research evidence within a field and bringing together researchers across disciplines or irrespective of disciplines, there may be some disadvantages. Researchers may escape exposure to the traditions of a particular discipline and may fail to acquire a secure identity within a discipline. In so far as the choice of a mixed method research strategy is determined by practical rather than disciplinary influences, then approaches to theory becomes more eclectic. There is a danger that researchers who are not sufficiently theoretically grounded before they do their research will import theory when they write it up in order to strengthen or support a particular set of findings. Theory should also inform the research questions one poses at the start of a project.

References

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Sechrest, L., & Sidana, S., 1995. Quantitative and qualitative methods: Is there an alternative? Evaluation and Program Planning, 18, 77-87.