Mixed methodologies in research design

Mixed Methods Study Design

What's Wrong with Mixed Methodology

Morris and Burkett (2011) witnessed the relatively recent emergence of what has been called "mixed methods" research. A study using a mixed methods design would meet both quantitative and qualitative evaluative criteria. From the author's perspective and that of others cited in their publication, quantitative and qualitative research designs are effectively mutually exclusive. The only concession that Morris and Burkett (2011) seemed to allow was a study design where qualitative and quantitative were used in a complimentary fashion, essentially conducted side-by-side.

The two competing perspectives discussed by Morris and Burkett (2011) in their publication were (1) both study designs could be combined effectively if the appropriate research methods were used and (2) the controversy is overblown and getting in the way of research. The authors, however, did not see any value in these positions and instead tried to support their perspective using a descriptive study of their own. They searched the CINHL database for nursing research articles containing the string 'mixed methods' and evaluated the study designs actually used. They discovered that most studies that claimed the use of a mixed methods design were in fact primarily quantitative in orientation. The qualitative aspect of these studies was limited to the inclusion of qualitative research methods, but failed to meet the qualitative study design criteria of inductive reasoning, dynamic reality, small sample, and immersion of the researcher into the study. By comparison, most studies met the quantitative design criteria of deductive reasoning, fixed reality, larger samples for randomization, and researchers detached from the reality experienced by the study subjects.

Morris and Burkett (2011) concluded that the majority of mixed method research publications in the nursing research literature are in fact quantitative studies complemented by qualitative methods. This conclusion was based on their finding that the vast majority of studies in their sample were both quantitative and deductive in orientation. The authors failed to find a single mixed method publication that used a qualitative study design as the primary framework. In addition, they found that fewer than a third of the studies actually discussed both quantitative and qualitative evaluation criteria, such as validity, reliability, and generalizability for quantitative study designs and confirmability, credibility, meaning-in-context, recurrent patterning, saturation, and transferability for qualitative study designs. The authors suggested that the terms 'mixed methodologies' or 'descriptive/explanatory' would be more accurate, since many studies incorporated open-ended surveys to complement the quantitative findings.