Mixed Methods Research for the Novice Researcher
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by AUT Scholarly Commons Copyright © eContent Management Pty Ltd. Contemporary Nurse (2006) 23: 3–11. Mixed methods research for the novice researcher ABSTRACT Mixed methods research is becoming increasingly popular in the health and social science disciplines.The aim of this article is to give an overview of the Key Words varieties of mixed methods designs.We begin by situating mixed methods research in the context of a paradigmatic framework which assists a researcher mixed methods; qualitative in making decisions concerning the design of their study.Although the most research; commonly used mixed methods designs are underpinned by positivist/ quantitative postpositivist assumptions, the combination of qualitative and quantitative research; methods can be used within any research paradigm. paradigms; postpositivism Received 24 January 2006 Accepted 27 July 2006 CN BARBARA M GRANT Senior Lecturer LYNNE S GIDDINGS Centre for Associate Professor Professional School of Nursing Development Auckland University The University of of Technology Auckland Auckland, Aotearoa Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand New Zealand INTRODUCTION: either unable to answer the research question ANYTHING GOES? or trying to push contradictory data into a t first glance, mixed methods appears compromising fit. In our experience, health and A to offer an ‘anything goes’ approach to social science students undertaking research for research. Not so. There is always a taken-for- the first time often struggle with the inevitable granted, and usually unacknowledged, world- complexities and messiness of the research view with underlying assumptions that guides design process.Yet the choices we make about the choice of methods to be mixed and how the methods are important because particular data will be used. If this worldview or paradigm methods will close down or open up research is not made explicit during the research possibilities in quite distinctive ways; they will process, a researcher may find themselves lost, allow some questions to be explored but not Volume 23, Issue 1, October 2006 CN 3 CN Lynne S Giddings and Barbara M Grant others. When undertaking a mixed methods combining methodologies from different para- study careful consideration needs to be given to digms) without getting into contradiction. the assumptions underpinning the research We argue that postpositivism is a shift from approach so there is congruence between the within the positivist paradigm. It developed dur- chosen methods and the research question. A ing the 1960s, largely from the increasing fundamental assumption underpinning this arti- recognition without and within science of the ide- cle is that mixed methods is a research tool ological and practical limitations of certain rather than a methodology in its own right. designs and strategies.The prefix ‘post’, when attached to words like positivism, modernism, A researcher’s worldview and colonialism for example, indicates a further or paradigm development of the original concept, but one In this paper we focus on the most commonly that is fundamentally critical of it. So postposi- used approach to mixed methods research, a tivism continues most of the key philosophical combination of qualitative and quantitative assumptions of positivism but in a changed or methods for collecting and analysing data under- more moderate form. For example, a core pinned by postpositivist assumptions.We view fundamental positivist assumption is that of postpositivism as an extension of the traditional determinism, the belief that effects have a scientific worldview or paradigm known as posi- determinable cause and actions have predictable tivism (as we will shortly explain). In our view outcomes. Postpositivists maintain this assump- (described in detail in Grant & Giddings, 2002), tion in a modified form: rather than assuming a the main health and social science research linear process of cause and effect, they perceive paradigms are four: the positivist/scientific, outcomes as the result of a complex array of interpretivist/constructivist, radical/critical and causative factors that interact with each other. poststructural. A researcher’s paradigm reflects Mixed methods researchers are not always their beliefs about what reality is (ontology), aware of the postpositivist underpinning of their what counts as knowledge (epistemology), how studies. By omission, their work may reflect an one gains knowledge (methodology), and the assumption of being paradigm free or they may values one holds (axiology). The first three make unsupported claims of creating the ‘best terms may be scarily familiar to you but the last of both worlds’ by incorporating other para- is likely to be new.Yet the axiological position- digms such as interpretive or radical/critical. ing of a researcher is often the determining fac- One of us has described such mixed methods tor in the research decision-making process. For studies as ‘positivism dressed in drag’ (Giddings instance, a person who has strong values on 2005: 195). issues of social justice and equity is likely to be In what follows we begin by clarifying the drawn to the radical/critical paradigm because terms methodology/methods and qualitative/ it focuses on social action and social change.The quantitative.We then offer some guidelines on emergence of Kaupapa Maori research (indige- how to decide when to use a mixed methods nous within Aotearoa New Zealand) may be design, followed by a description of the various understood in part as driven by profound designs we consider most useful in health axiological differences embedded in different research. Illustrative examples from nursing cultures.Taken together, paradigm assumptions research studies and references for further read- and beliefs indicate the proper kind of ing are provided along the way.Although mixed researcher–researched relationship. Important- methods research is largely located in post- ly, paradigms are incommensurate, that is you positivism, we suggest that it can be used by cannot easily work across them (for instance by researchers situated within other paradigms. 4 CN Volume 23, Issue 1, October 2006 Mixed methods research for the novice researcher CN WHAT IS ‘MIXED’ IN MIXED In this sense the methods are ‘a-theoretical and METHODS RESEARCH? a-methodological’ (Sarantakos 1998: 34) and There is some debate over whether or not therefore can be mixed.Taking the blood testing mixed methods research is itself a research par- example above, the researcher could use the adigm or methodology. In our view, the most data collection methods of interviewing the par- commonly used mixed methods designs are ticipants, measuring blood test results, and simply an approach to research that mixes quali- observing procedure, depending on their question. tative and quantitative methods.To understand To decide sensibly, the researcher would have to this, it is helpful to be clear about the difference identify their research question first. between methodology and methods, and the terms qualitative and quantitative. DECIDING TO USE MIXED Methodology is a more abstract term than METHODS RESEARCH methods and refers to the theoretical assump- Mixed methods research has a range of tions and principles that underpin a particular strengths. It is particularly useful in survey, eval- research approach. It guides how a researcher uation, and field research (Patton 2002) because frames the research question and decides on it has a broader focus than single method design what process and methods to use. Methods, in and gathers more information in different contrast, are much more concrete and practical modes about a phenomenon. It can also give – they are the tools for collecting and analysing insight into complex social phenomena such as data.The methods a researcher chooses need to family violence or anorexia nervosa by produc- fit with the research question. For example, if ing findings that illuminate that complexity.Yet your research question was ‘what is it like for another strength of mixed methods design is someone to have a blood test?’ (their experi- that the breadth of findings can bring value to ence), but then you focused your study on the the research process itself by highlighting the results of the blood tests (measurements) or particular shortcomings in each of the methods how the blood specimens were taken (observa- used and compensating for them. When the tions of technique), there would be a lack of fit. findings are contradictory, they can reveal The data you gathered would not allow you to researcher assumptions that would not other- address the research question. wise have been known or the constraints and The terms quantitative and qualitative are biases of ways of measuring or interpreting commonly used to describe both the methods something (refer to Exemplar 1 below for an and the methodologies used in health research. example of this). However, what makes this Confusing? Yes! Historically, quantitative research design most attractive to health practitioners is has been viewed as synonymous with positivism its pragmatism, that is, its usefulness in the clin- and qualitative with interpretivism – hence the ical setting to collect comprehensive informa- association with methodology. Some writers tion about a phenomenon that can then guide consider the terms to refer to two research par- decisions about practice. Examples of such phe- adigms in and of themselves