2. • Emergent mixed methods designs generally occur when a second approach
(quantitative or qualitative) is added after the study is underway because
one method has been found to be inadequate (Morse & Niehaus, 2009).
• For example, Ras (2009) described how she found the need to add a
• quantitative component to her qualitative case study of self-imposed
• curricular change at one elementary school. She used this quantitative
• component to address emergent concerns with the trustworthiness of her
• interpretations of what she learned from her participants. In this way, her
• qualitative case study became a mixed methods study during her process
of
• implementing the research project.
3. • Other purposes for this design include corroboration and validation
purposes, illustrating quantitative results with qualitative findings (or
vice versa), or examining relationships among variables by adding
new variables based on transformed qualitative data into the
relationships.
4. • The qualitative phase is implemented for the purpose of
• explaining the initial results in more depth, and the name of the
design—
• explanatory—reflects how the qualitative data help explain the
quantitative
• results.
5. • Because this design begins qualitatively, it is best suited for exploring a
• phenomenon. Such an exploration is needed for one of several reasons: (1)
• measures, instruments, or experimental activities are not available; (2) the
• variables are unknown; (3) there is no guiding framework or theory; or (4)
• there is a need to make an existing quantitative measure or instrument as
• specific to the participants or culture as possible. This design is particularly
• useful when the researcher needs to develop and test an instrument because
• one is not available (Creswell, 1999; Creswell et al., 2004) or to identify
• important variables to study quantitatively when the variables are unknown. It
• is also appropriate when the researcher wants to assess the generalizability of
• qualitative results to different groups (Morgan, 2014); to test aspects of an
• emergent theory or classification (Morgan, 1998); or to explore a
• phenomenon in depth and measure the prevalence of its dimensions.
