Utilizing Mixed Methods in Psychological Research

Abstract

Along with the emergence of a strong community of qualitative researchers in the past few decades, a sharp dichotomy has emerged between them and the traditionally quantitative community of scholars in social and behavioral sciences. Mixed methods research has achieved popularity as a reaction to this dichotomy of approaches. It has provided an integrative and multiapproach alternative, consisting of systematic and formal ways of conceptualizing research questions and research designs, data collection and analysis, inference-making, and quality audits. Following a review of historical examples of utilizing both qualitative and quantitative methods in psychological research, we discuss the main characteristics of four families of mixed methods research designs: Sequential, parallel, conversion, and fully integrated. Within each family of designs, examples are provided to demonstrate various possibilities in terms of types of research questions (preplaned, emergent), data sources (different samples, same/sub samples, multilevel), data collection and analysis techniques, and interpretation/integration of the findings. Conceptual and practical issues are discussed in relation to assessing the quality and transferability of inferences in mixed methods. The chapter is concluded by suggesting that mixed methods provide a highly eclectic and flexible possibility to answer research questions that require research methodology beyond the traditional qualitative or quantitative mono approaches. Keywords: mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative); humanistic research methodology; sequential mixed design; parallel mixed design; conversion mixed design; fully integrated mixed design