A mixed methods design for building occupants’ energy behavior research

Abstract

Occupant behavior is viewed as a main source causing the building energy performance gap between the predicted and the actual consumption. The nature of occupants’ energy behavior research requires a combination of social science and natural science, which indicates that a mixed methods design would be useful. However, researchers often do not know when and how mixed methods approach should be used. To fill this gap, this paper first reviewed the research methods adopted in 230 relevant articles published in the past decade. The results show that 83.48% of articles applied quantitative methods, followed by mixed methods (5.22%) and qualitative methods (0.87%) with rest being pure review or conceptual papers. This shows that researchers in the field of occupant behavior mainly adopt the objectivist philosophical position. Subsequently, an in-depth analysis of research methodologies was conducted in relation to worldviews and philosophical assumptions, and the advantages and disadvantages of qualitative and quantitative methods were discussed. Finally, a mixed methods research design framework was proposed as a point of departure for researchers to gain a comprehensive understanding of mixed methods design. It is expected that this framework could help researchers develop a proper mixed methods research design according to the nature of their research problem.