Can a methodology take a life of its own?
This was a war where not a drop of blood was shed, nor prisoner held, with no victor or vanquished. It has never earnt a mention in standard school history textbooks.
Yet, its impact for societies across the globe has been seismic and it’s ready for the future (at least, I think so).
The average layperson knows nothing of the Paradigm War; so intense some speak of it in the plural (Guba 1990, Smith 1989 and Gage 1989).
By the 1970s to late 1990s, this was a terse battle or debate of ‘blurring [academic] genres’ (Denzin and Lincholn:1994:9 in Hatch 2017:4), of two starkly distinctive knowledge systems — qualitative and quantitative methodologies.
The paradigm of description, story (Creswell 2013) and interpretation versus the paradigm of measurement, empiricism and positivism. Each seeking to trounce the other as the superior way.
One of the triggers for the Paradigm War was a backlash against scientific methods to study and improve teaching — an approach that proved inconclusive (Guba 1989:4). Those rumblings started happening in the 1950s (Creswell and Plano Clark 2007), with research in the field of teaching taking prominence (Gage 1989:4) in this ‘debate’.
The Paradigm War spawned the third research paradigm or wave in educational research (Johnson and Onwuegbuzie 2004:17).
Perhaps, we can call the result the progeny, or ‘child’ of this momentary union of methodologies.
Let’s welcome Mixed Methods Research …
(or MMR for short).
‘She’s a type of multiple method or mixed methods design (Teddlie and Taskakkori 2003:11). MMR is a fledgling methodology (let’s surmise a decade in methodological years equates to a single human year), spending her first two decades developing her procedures (Creswell and Plano Clark 2007).
MMR has forged an alternative path to knowledge and meaning-making, turning up her nose at monomethod research.
Some of her ancestral ghosts had hewn a rough direction for her … nothing formal, just a ”loosely bound concept’ of mixing methods that was unconscious (Hesse-Biber 2015).
She’s still on her training wheels, but, gosh, is she powering along this Millenium! MMR is gaining a lot of traction with much trans-disciplinary literature in her wake. She’s made a substantial foray into marketing, international business, strategic management, organisational behaviour, operations management and entrepreneurship (Cameron and Molina-Azorin 2011:266), the arts, health, sociology and, of course, education.
Her ‘parents’ — qualitative and quantitative methodologies — are estranged from each other (warring, even). However, they continue to draw strength from their own traditions, while occasionally trying new approaches within their respective paradigms.
MMR stamps her foot down that it’s not either one or the other. Instead, she tips her hat to both quantitative and qualitative processes — she is integrating them and showing it works.
MMR has the best traits of each of her parents, or not, depending on whom you quiz. Oh, and her parents will argue those traits (think paradigm, methodologies and associated methods) are incompatible, so can’t and shouldn’t be mixed (Howe 1998 in Johnson and Onwuegbuzie 2004:14).
Despite that quibbling, MMR stamps her foot down that it’s not either one or the other. Instead, she tips her hat to both quantitative and qualitative processes — she is integrating them and showing it works. She likens it to a kaleidoscope, offering a range of perspectives for new insights on the (roughly) same vista.
As an only child, she does things her own way.
You won’t look at a child with a kaleidoscope in quite the same way again.
That’s pertinent because there are more than 40 definitions of MMR (Johnson et al 2007, Plano Clark and Ivankova 2016). Here are a couple:
‘In general, mixed methods research represents research that involves collecting, analyzing, and interpreting quantitative and qualitative data in a single study or in a series of studies that investigate the same underlying phenomenon.‘ (Leech and Onwuegbuzie 2008)
And
‘Mixed methods research is a research design with philosophical assumptions as well as methods of inquiry. As a methodology, it involves philosophical assumptions that guide the direction of the collection and analysis of data and the mixture of qualitative and quantitative data in a single study or series of studies. Its central premise is that the use of quantitative and qualitative approaches in combination provides a better understanding of research problems than either approach alone.’ (Creswell and Plano Clark 2007:5).
And our definition?
We humbly put forward that MMR integrates quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches, techniques, and ideas within a single study. It could be in a myriad of ways, making for deeper research findings and more highly skilled researchers who are primed for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. According to Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (2016), the characteristics of this revolution are a fusion of technologies that blur physical, digital and biological spheres. MMR is well-positioned to draw in trans, intra and inter-disciplinary researchers. You’ll notice we focus here on outcomes — that’s an occupational hazard of us as educators.
As for the term, Mixed Methods Research, we defer to Teddlie and Taskakkori (2002:11) to quash any confusion, so our site is NOT about:
Mixed model research: where the mixing can happen in most or all of the research questions, methods, data collection, analysis as well as the inference process,
NOR
Multi-method research: where you use research methods or data collection approaches from the same tradition (either quantitative or qualitative) to answer your research questions. So, that type of research design is termed a multi-method quantitative study or a multi-method qualitative study.
If you’re doing either of those, you’re not being true to MMR’s quest.
MMR wants to get serious now, this is not a research journey for loafers!
I humbly put forward that MMR integrates quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches, techniques, and ideas in a single study. It could be in a myriad of ways, making for deeper research findings and more highly skilled researchers who are primed for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Thanks for joining me on my continuing journey into postgraduate educational research. Sometimes it’s fun to wordplay with the esoteric elements of scholarly pursuits.
References:
Cameron R and Molina-Azorin JR (2011) ‘The acceptance of mixed methods in business and management’, International Journal of Organizational Analysis 19(3):256–271, doi:10.1108/19348831111149204
Creswell J (2 March 2013) ‘Developing Mixed Methods Research with Dr. John W. Creswell’ , Sage Publishing, YouTube, accessed 9 June 2021.
Creswell JW and Plano Clark VL (2007) Designing and conducting mixed methods research, Sage, Thousand Oaks, California.
Denzin NK and Lincoln YS (1994) Introduction: Entering the field of qualitative research, in Denzin N K and Lincoln YS (Eds) Handbook of qualitative research, Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage, in 1994:9 in Hatch A (2002) Doing qualitative research in education settings, State University of New York Press, Albany.
Gage NL (1989) ‘The Paradigm Wars and Their Aftermath: ‘A “Historical” Sketch of Research on Teaching since 1989’, Educational Researcher, 18(7)4–10
Guba GE (1990) The Paradigm Dialog, (Editor), Sage, Newbury Park, California.
Hatch A (2002) Doing Qualitative Research in Education Settings, State University of New York Press, Albany.
Hesse-Biber S (31 March 2015) The ‘Thing-ness’ Problem of Mixed Methods Research by Professor Sharlene Hesse-Biber, YouTube, accessed 4 May 2021.
Howe KR (1998) ‘Against the quantitative-qualitative incompatibility thesis, or, Dogmas die hard’, Educational Researcher, 17:10–16
Johnson RB and Onwuegbuzie AJ (2004) ‘Mixed Methods Research: A Research Paradigm Whose Time Has Come’, Educational Researcher, 33(7)14–26
Leech N and Onwuegbuzie AJ (2008) ‘Typology of mixed methods research designs’. Quality and Quantity, 43(2):265–275 doi: 10.1007/s11135–007–9105–3
Teddlie C and Tashakkori A (2012) ‘Common “core” characteristics of mixed methods research: A review of critical issues and call for greater convergence.’ American Behavioral Scientist, 56 96), 774–788, doi:10.1177/0002764211433795
