Mixed methods research approaches and applications

Mixed Methods Study

The comparison of the administrative procedures of five traditional and five non-traditional colleges of Education in religious studies. All institutions have to be accredited via a national agency and be part of interactive online courses in conjunction with computer-based technologies.

This study will compare the differing forms of administrative procedures and their impact and manifestation on training, instructional support, additional compensation, teaching loads and the beneficial and negative influences on promotion and tenure with these ten traditional and non-traditional institutions that offer online learning, a hallmark of distance education. Distance education is becoming more and more ubiquitous and is marked by the utilization of technology as a means of providing education, training, experiences and more evolved forms of communication to people across vast distances. Thus, examining the effectiveness of the administrative processes with these institutions and their various influences on a range of issues, serves the purpose of providing one with a snapshot of the overall success and worthwhile quality of the programs at large.

Overarching Research Question: What is the relationship between availability of training programs and instructors in formal training?

Specific Research Questions/Hypothesis: What is the relationship between formal training and none formal training?

Type of study: Mixed methods

Mixed method design: Qualitative studies are generally numbers driven. Qualitative studies serve the purpose of giving researchers an accurate glimpse at amounts given in the form of whole numbers or percentages. The numbers-centric hallmark of qualitative studies generally highlights trends and can give researchers a very clear sense of patterns. For example, if a qualitative study can tell you what percentage of students at traditional religious institutions are satisfied with their course of study and overall experience. This is beneficial as it offers researchers "hard numbers" that connect to a specific issue.

On the other hand, qualitative studies don't revolve around numbers; they revolve around human experience and finding effective and efficient methods of drawing out those experiences and the thoughts and feelings surrounding them. This data is just as important to researchers as it provides the opportunity to know something about the human experience in connection with specific events and phenomena, thus illuminating these events and phenomena in ways that they would not ordinarily be.

This particular study absolutely has to be a mixed methods structure, thus incorporating aspects of both qualitative and quantitative strategies. This is absolutely crucial as quantitative data will offer researchers the "hard facts" about the administrative processes of these institutions and thus their effects on things like training, or salaries or even graduation rates. Qualitative data will give researchers a general sense of the thoughts and feelings of the participants of the study, offering patterns and trends of their satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

Procedure: how was data collected? What was the sampling strategy used? At the end of the semester, professors and administrators will be contacted of a range of classes and asked to complete surveys. The surveys will contain questions meant to gather both quantitative and qualitative answers.

Variables/concepts: Independent variables were the location of the faculty and administrators at these various institutions. Antecedent variables are the age, gender and ethnic background of participants. Dependent variables are the attitudes and level of satisfaction regarding the distance learning classes that they're participating in.

Instruments analysis: The survey instrument will contain fifty questions structured to utilize a 5 point Likert scale to ascertain attitudes and level of contentment. 28 questions will be specifically addressing the attitudes of the participants; the remaining 22 will be concerned primarily with the level of satisfaction of the participants. From the data generated, quantitative analysis will be generated.