This document provides guidance on developing a mixed methods research study. It outlines key steps such as drafting a working title, identifying an underlying problem, specifying data collection and analysis methods, and generating research questions. Research questions in mixed methods include at least one quantitative and one qualitative question. They should match the chosen mixed methods design. Developing objectives and considering theories is also recommended during the conceptualization phase of research.

1. Generating Questions in
Mixed Methods Research
Research Title
Hypothesis & Questions

2. THE NEED FOR PLANNING
A MIXED METHOD STUDY
• About how to conduct a mixed methods study
• Inquire whether you have an audience for your mixed methods study
• To examine a research problem.

3. STEPS IN PROCESS OF DOING
MIXED METHOD STUDY
1. Drafting a working title for the project
2. Identifying the problem or issue underlying the need for the study
3. Indicating the intent or general question to be answered
4. Specifying the types of data collection and analysis to be used
5. Identifying reasons for using mixed methods in your project
6. Considering the inclusion of a worldview discussion and a theory discussion
7. Defining mixed methods
8. Choosing a mixed methods design
9. Drawing a figure of your design
10. Considering methodological and validity issues in your study
11. Writing a mixed methods study aim or purpose
12. Adding research questions (quantitative, qualitative, and mixed) that match your design

4. THE WORKING TITLE
 Taking a stand on a title is therefore an essential part of beginning to design a study.
 Granted, the title will change and shift over time as the project becomes more and more
clearly defined.
 There are several key elements that must be included in a good mixed methods title:
 The topic being addressed (e.g., palliative care or bullying).
 The participants in the study and perhaps the site where the participants reside.
 The words mixed methods to denote the methodology being used.
 The goal is to compose a “neutral” title, since mixed methods resides between
quantitative and qualitative research. Stay away from words that convey a qualitative
leaning, such as explore, meaning, or discover. Also stay away from words that convey
a quantitative orientation, such as relationship, correlation, or explanation.

5. THE WORKING TITLE
 Keep the title short (say, under 10 words),
 Example 1. Unwritten rules of talking to doctors about depression: Integrating
quantitative and qualitative methods (Wittink, Barg, & Gallo, 2006)
 Example 2. Students’ persistence in a distributed doctoral program in educational
leadership in higher education: A mixed methods study (Ivankova & Stick, 2007)

6. THE PROBLEM UNDERLYING THE
NEED FOR THE STUDY
 It is important to write a short paragraph about the problem or issue that underlies
the need for the study.
 “There is a need in the literature” or a “gap”
 The Rationales for a Problem, —
 Problems that reside in practice or in the real world that need to be addressed.
 What do policymakers, or health providers, or teachers need?
 Describe some combination of real-world problems and deficiencies in the
literature.

7. DATA COLLECTION AND
DATA ANALYSIS
 It is important to identify the types of quantitative as well as qualitative data collection
and analysis that will be proposed.
 Researchers to identify the following items under data collection:
 Participants
 Site for the research
 Number of participants
 Types of information to be collected (e.g., measures and variables quantitatively,
central phenomena qualitatively)
 Types of data (e.g., instrument, records, interviews)

8. REASONS FOR USING
MIXED METHOD STUDY
 First, there is a general rationale for using mixed methods in a study. It is appropriate to
use mixed methods when the use of quantitative research or qualitative research alone is
insufficient for gaining an understanding of the problem.
 At a more specific level, the combination of quantitative and qualitative research enables
us to:
 Obtain two different responses,
 Obtain a more comprehensive view
 Add to instrument data
 Conduct preliminary exploration instruments, measures, and intervention
 Add qualitative data to our experimental trials.

9. SPECIFYING A WORLDVIEW OR
THEORY
 These beliefs may relate to what types of evidence we use to make claims (epistemology) or
whether we feel that reality is multiple or singular (ontology).
 Thus, some mixed methods writers adhere to pragmatism (i.e., “what works” and practice) as a
philosophy.
 Theories, in contrast to philosophical assumptions, are commonly used in mixed methods
studies
 One finds these theories in the literature and locates them by closely reading journal articles
and research studies that include theories. They typically inform the quantitative side of
research, and help in determining what questions to ask. In qualitative research, they may be
advanced at the beginning of a study (e.g., an ethnographic theory of acculturation), or they
may emerge through data collection (e.g., in grounded theory research).
 Another type of theory would be a transformative, participatory, or advocacy theory

10. GENERATING QUESTIONS IN
MIXED METHODS RESEARCH

11. THE CONCEPTUALIZATION PHASE OF RESEARCH
• The conceptualization phase involves all of the planning that
occurs from the time of the researcher’s decision to conduct
a study until the implementation of actual research.
• Four-step model for the generation of research questions
– The emergence of a reason or REASONS FOR
CONDUCTING RESEARCH
– The identification of a RESEARCHABLE IDEA in a content
area of interest
– The generation of RESEARCH OBJECTIVES (optional)
– The generation of RESEARCH QUESTIONS

12. FOUR-STEP MODEL FOR THE
GENERATION OF RESEARCH QUESTIONS

13. The Reasons for Conducting Research
• A Typology of Reasons for Conducting Research
• Typology serves three functions
– It establishes a logical sequence of activities involved in
performing a research project
– It enunciates several of the most important contemporary
reasons for conducting research
– It may lead individual investigators to rethink or express
differently their reasons for conducting research

14. The Reasons for Conducting Research
• Traditional QUALs tend to emphasize understanding complex
phenomena as a reason for conducting research. On the other hand,
• Traditional QUANs tend to emphasize the specification of relationships
among variables, which might eventually lead to causal explanations.
• Mixed methodologists embrace all of these reasons as valid ones for
conducting research in different discipline areas and in different settings
or contexts.
• Following are details about each of these reasons.
– Personal Reasons
– Reasons Associated With Advancing Knowledge
– Societal Reasons

15. Researchable Ideas in Content Area of Interest
• Research areas of interest move from the general to the specific as follows:
– Whole disciplines (e.g., psychology, education, political science,
anthropology)
– Major subdisciplines within disciplines (e.g., social psychology, clinical
psychology, developmental psychology, experimental psychology,
school psychology, psychometrics)
– Broad research topics within major subdisciplines (e.g., attitude
change, attribution theory, interpersonal attraction, whole-group
behaviour)
– Content areas of interest within broad research topics (e.g., the
relationship between proximity and interpersonal attraction)

16. Researchable Ideas in Content Area of Interest
• Researchers have at least four sources for locating researchable
ideas (e.g., Johnson & Christensen, 2004, 2008):
– Intuitions based on previous experiences
– Reactions to practical problems
– Results from previous research
– Theory or conceptual frameworks

17. Generating Objectives (Optional)
• Many of the research projects that we supervise are doctoral
dissertations, in which students want to simultaneously accomplish
two goals:
– (1) demonstrate that a particular variable will have a predicted
relationship with another variable (confirmatory research) and
– (2) answer questions about how that predicted (or other
related) relationship actually occurs (exploratory research)

18. Generating Research Questions
• Mixed methods research questions are concerned with unknown
aspects of a phenomenon and are answered with information that
is presented in both narrative and numerical forms.
• A unique aspect of any given MM study is that it requires at least
two research questions (one QUAL, one QUAN), whereas traditional
QUAL or QUAN studies could be initiated with only one question
• This position with regard to the debate about quantitative and
qualitative research prioritizes the research question and relegates
epistemological and ontological debates to the side-lines. In doing
so, it clears the path for research that combines quantitative and
qualitative research.

19. Generating Research Questions
• The Research Question as a Dual Focal Point
– The research process may be graphically represented as two
triangles, one pointing down and the other pointing up, that
meet at a centre point.
– This centre point represents the research question (or
questions), the upper triangle represents the activities that
precede the emergence of the question, and the lower triangle
represents the activities that follow from the formulation of the
question.

20. Generating Research Questions
• QUAN research hypothesis: More psychologically mature
adolescents will be less involved in the risky behaviour of
heavy drinking than will less psychologically mature
adolescents, both concurrently and longitudinally.
Adalbjarnardottir (2002) studied a group of adolescents over
a 22-month period, assessing their psychosocial maturity (on
an instrument designed for that purpose) and their alcohol
substance use on a self-report questionnaire.
• QUAL research question: What can we learn from
adolescents’ reflections on drinking by exploring their
perspectives through thematic and developmental lenses
both concurrently and longitudinally (Adalbjarnardottir,
2002, p. 27)? Interview data were gathered from adolescents
regarding their concerns, experiences, and reflections
regarding alcohol use to answer this research question.

21. Generating Research Questions
• Teddlie and Stringfield (1993). These researchers conducted a longitudinal MM study
– Research Hypothesis 1: Classrooms in more effective schools will have higher time-on-task than will
classrooms in less effective schools.
– Research Hypothesis 2: Classrooms in more effective schools will have better discipline than
classrooms in less effective schools.
– Research Hypothesis 3: Classrooms in more effective schools will have a friendlier ambience than
classrooms in less effective schools.
• Consequently, they set out to study the relationship between school and teacher effectiveness processes
using the following research questions:
– QUAL Research Question 1: How are teachers selected at more effective schools as opposed to less
effective schools?
– QUAL Research Question 2: How are teachers socialized at more effective schools as opposed to less
effective schools?
– QUAL Research Question 3: What are the differences in school-level academic leadership in more
effective schools as opposed to less effective schools?
– QUAL Research Question 4: What are the differences in school-level faculty cohesiveness in more
effective schools as opposed to less effective schools?

22. CONDUCTING LITERATURE
REVIEW
 Step 1. Identify a research topic
 Step 2. Identify keywords or descriptors that are useful in locating materials.
 Step 3. Develop an overall search strategy for the literature review.
 Step 4. Search preliminary sources.
 Step 5. Select relevant primary and secondary sources.
 Step 6. Search the library for the secondary and primary sources that have been identified.
 Step 7. Establish a computer and paper trail, including research summaries in your own words that will be used in
the literature review.
 Step 8. Repeat Steps 4–7 as needed. Each time the search is more refined.
 Step 9. Develop themes or concepts that synthesize the literature
 Step 10. Relate the themes/concepts to one another through outline of the literature review, or literature map
 Step 11. Produce a final literature review that organizes the literature thematically or by important concepts.
 Step 12. Use the literature review to develop or refine the research questions (and hypotheses).

23. Thank You
NOW TAKE AWAYS