Innovation in Mixed Methods Research

A Practical Guide to Integrative Thinking with Complexity

Cheryl N. Poth

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781526453716
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Research & Methodology
• Index: Social Sciences

Explaining both why and how to use mixed methods for discovering solutions to complex research problems, this guidegives readers the tools to adapt approaches to suit their own research conditions. Written in a warm, encouraging tone and packed with helpful diagrams and visual organizers, it provides an easy-to-follow map to the mixed methods process, covering everything from 'what is mixed methods research?' to framing, integrating, and describing a complexity-sensitive mixed methods approach.

Features include:

• Key questions to navigate the important concepts of each chapter
• Practice alerts to provide practical tips on working in the field
• Chapter check-ins to assess development of key skills
• Further reading to expand and deepen knowledge of mixed methods practices
• An annotated glossary to get to grips with foundational terms and revise for exams

Supported throughout by real-world examples and advice from the author and other mixed methods experts, this book helps readers succeed in their projects and think innovatively about the methods they use.

Part I Getting Started with Essential Foundations

Welcome to the field of mixed methods research, and I now invite you to join me on a learning journey. In the first three chapters I describe the essential foundations for the adaptive mixed methods research practices described in Part II of this book. When I first began describing these practices I realized the need to first familiarize readers with what I meant by complexity and mixed methods research under conditions of varying complexity, why innovations were necessary in mixed methods research, and what opportunities were afforded by integrative thinking with complexity for mixed methods researchers. In so doing, I provide access to a complexity-sensitive approach to readers with a wide range of familiarity with mixed methods research. Revisiting the essential foundations of mixed methods research will allow us all to begin on common ground.

Mixed methods research is well established in the literature yet there exists much diversity across many areas. Researchers trained in some research approaches and disciplines often express surprise (and even dismay) at what appears to be a lack of consensus within the field of mixed methods research. I come at this diversity with a sense of wonder. This is because the field of mixed methods research and understandings about how to conceptualize, design, and conduct mixed methods research continue to develop across many disciplines and are influenced by countless perspectives. I place a great deal of value on this diversity because I believe it helps advance mixed methods research practice. To that end, I welcome diverse disciplines, orientations, and perspectives because I believe they produce a more interesting and rich mixed methods research community! That said, I would be doing a disservice to the reader if I did not acknowledge that diversity can also be confounding – especially to those new to mixed methods research and those beginning to consider the varying conditions of research complexity. Hence the importance of the initial three chapters in this book.

Mixed methods research continues to experience unprecedented interest and demand as a mechanism for mitigating the inherent limitations with either qualitative or quantitative data alone. More recently, mixed methods research has been highlighted as useful in generating innovations for solving societal problems. For the most part, this is welcome news as researchers recognize the potential of mixed methods research to address societal problems where the solutions are not apparent and remain inaccessible by either qualitative and quantitative data alone. If the mixed methods research community is to position itself for effectively addressing societal problems, then we must shift the way we intellectually and methodologically respond under conditions of varying complexity. Essentially, harnessing the potential of mixed methods research means creating mixed methods research practices that are more complexity-sensitive – the theoretical underpinnings of such transformations informed by the principles of complexity science. Prior to delving into the thinking and actions behind the adaptive practices reflective of a more complexity-sensitive mixed methods research approach described in Part II of this book, it is important to introduce the essentials of mixed methods research.

The three chapters in Part I are as follows:

• Chapter 1: Embracing Complexity in Mixed Methods Research 2
• Chapter 2: Positioning Demand for Innovation in Complex Mixed Methods Research 24
• Chapter 3: Advancing Integrative Thinking with Complexity in Mixed Methods Research 54

1 Embracing Complexity in Mixed Methods Research

Key Chapter Questions

By the end of this chapter, you will be able to answer the following questions:

• Why focus on complexity within mixed methods research?
• What experiences does the author draw upon?
• What is meant by complexity and innovation in mixed methods research?
• Who are the audiences for this book?
• How is this book organized for the reader?
• What are the six mixed methods research studies featured in this book?

New Chapter Terms

By the end of this chapter, you will be familiar with the following terms:

• High complexity
• Complexity
• Innovation
• Complexity lens
• Integrative thinking
• Complexity science
• Low complexity
• Complexity-sensitive mixed methods research approach
• Mixed methods research
• Complex mixed methods research problems
• Moderate complexity
• Conditions of complexity
• Traditional mixed methods research practices

This chapter provides an introduction to this book. It speaks to the question: Why focus on complexity and how can understandings about varying conditions of complexity inform my approach to mixed methods research? The book was born out of necessity, and I am forever grateful to the students (as well as colleagues, editors, and others) who encouraged me to write it! A conversation about five years ago with a small group of graduate students seeking advice related to their individual mixed methods studies gave rise to the idea for the book. Common to these studies and at the heart of my own mixed methods research definition was the design of research to generate previously inaccessible insights from the integration of qualitative and quantitative data (see Chapter 2 for further discussion). What had led to this group conversation was being approached individually by four students, within the same month, with questions about the dilemmas they were facing in their mixed methods studies. Although the students were working independently, I realized that they could each benefit from having access to the discussions about one another’s experiences. The students quickly agreed to my suggestion of meeting several times as a group. I confess that my primary motivation for the group approach was efficiency – I did not anticipate the emergence of new understandings from the group interactions that would not have been possible with those involved individually.

Through embracing a new way of integrative thinking – and questioning the utility of some traditional mixed methods research practice tendencies under certain research conditions – I began to conceptualize the need for more adaptive approaches to mixed methods research. To that end, this book advances a complexity-sensitive mixed methods research approach incorporating six adaptive practices to enhance researchers’ capacity to respond to the unique and unfolding conditions under which mixed methods research studies are undertaken (see Chapter 3, Table 3.3). Through adopting a complexity lens, I formed new connections with my understandings of complexity science, my practices as a developmental evaluator, and my experiences as a mixed methods researcher from learning about the dilemmas these students were encountering in their mixed methods research. Using these new connections as a catalyst, I imagined how mixed methods researchers might mitigate some of the perceived limitations with traditional practice tendencies under some conditions of complexity (see Chapter 2 for fulsome discussion of traditional mixed methods research practice tendencies). By recognizing the sources of complexity in mixed methods research, I began to see new possibilities for guiding adaptive practices where researchers become more responsive to the varying conditions of complexity. But first, let me define what I mean by complexity – there is little consensus, and many definitions refer to complexity as a state or quality of being complex, which of course is not very helpful! Later in the chapter I distinguish complex from complicated and simple, but, for now, I see complexity as characterizing the behaviour of a research system whereby its components (such as research participants, researchers, their environments) interact in multiple, nonlinear ways without direction. The outcomes of these interactions are impossible to predict with any accuracy, yet patterns of behaviour from the system can be documented retrospectively.

This work, related to varying conditions of research complexity, was both challenging and rewarding because it required me to think creatively about mixed methods research practices. In so doing, I embody the words of the American psychiatrist and best-selling author M. Scott Peck who wrote in the introduction to his book, Further along the Road Less Traveled: ‘abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and easy answers, and begin to think multidimensionally, to glory in the mystery and paradoxes of life, not to be dismayed by the multitude of causes and consequences that are inherent in each experience – to appreciate the fact that life is complex’ (1998, p. 14). To that end, in advancing six adaptive practices, I see these as a starting point and that our understandings of complexity-sensitive approaches to mixed methods research will naturally evolve over time (see Table 3.3). In Practice Alert 1.1, I consider the usefulness of integrative thinking as guiding my approach to mixed methods research under conditions of complexity and I invite you to begin doing the same. In so doing, I provide a framework for acknowledging the usefulness of many traditional mixed methods research practices but also opening the possibilities for practices that have yet to be developed for conditions of complexity that have yet to be encountered.

Practice Alert 1.1

How can reflection on past experiences and readings of literature inform future mixed methods research practices?

My practices as a mixed methods researcher were initially guided by what I had read in the literature. As I began to read more about complexity science and learn about the dilemmas researchers were facing in their mixed methods research, I began to think about the need for more adaptive practices. My current thinking about adaptive mixed methods research practice tendencies reflects bringing a complexity lens to bear on what works in traditional mixed methods research practice tendencies under varying conditions of complexity. In this way, my practices not only respond to varying conditions of complexity but also make the adaptations explicit so that researchers can begin to learn from the experiences of others.

Try this now – sketch your ideas about what have been the key practices in your approach as a mixed methods researcher and consider what practice tendencies have been easy to apply. What dilemmas have you experienced? How might you approach mixed methods research practices differently in the future?

As I shared my emerging thinking about how mixed methods research practices might be made more complexity-sensitive with students and colleagues, I engaged in discussions concerning how these practices might be applied, and imagined their effects under varying conditions of complexity. In some cases, I found literature confirming that others had already advanced ideas for mitigating some limitations that I had considered in these traditional practice tendencies (further discussed in Chapter 2); for example, Guest (2013) proposed a mixed methods research design approach based on succinct descriptions of the points of data interface, and Creswell and Plano Clark (2018) advanced complex mixed methods designs. However, what I did not find in the literature was a comprehensive approach for attending and then responding with adaptive practices to the dynamic influences within the varying conditions under which mixed methods research occurred. The lack of such an approach was at the heart of many of the dilemmas I had documented, and so I began to sketch the adaptive practices involved in a complexity-sensitive approach to mixed methods research. Around the same time a body of work began emerging to confirm my inklings that complex mixed methods research problems and dynamic conditions required new thinking. Particularly noteworthy for my own thinking was reading about the potential role for mixed methods in addressing wicked problems described by Donna Mertens in an editorial for the Journal of Mixed Methods Research. In this work, Mertens (2015, p. 3) referenced Rittel and Webber’s (1973) definition of wicked problems as those that ‘involve multiple interacting systems, are replete with social and institutional uncertainties, and for which only imperfect knowledge about their nature and solutions exist’. The differentiation of wicked problems was a critical event for me because it provided an adjective to distinguish some problems I had been grappling with in my research and evaluation projects such as service delivery for children affected with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and enhancing teaching and learning experiences in large-sized class environments. For each of those problems there were multiple interacting systems involving individuals, groups, and society influenced by many, many changeable aspects.

I began to realize that there was a reason why working on wicked problems was hard! There was no recipe – conceptually, theoretically, or methodologically – for addressing them. I had felt like I was on a new path, and now I knew I was breaking new ground! I began by examining the conditions surrounding these problems in a way that intended to capture the interacting systems but did not try to reduce or simply them. Little did I know that I would begin to see many more problems as wicked than I had originally intended! I also came to see that the term ‘wicked’ had negative associations for some, so I decided simply to call them complex mixed methods research problems. I began making connections between my experiences as an evaluator and researcher with complex problems. Examine Researcher Spotlight 1.1, featuring the challenges wicked mixed methods research problems present and the need to prepare future mixed methods researchers for the pressing issues they will tackle, from the perspective of a pre-eminent mixed methods researcher and professor emeritus from Gallaudet University in Washington, DC.

Researcher Spotlight 1.1

Donna Mertens on preparing for the challenges of tackling complex mixed methods research problems

Mixed methods researchers are faced with challenges that emanate from advances in technology, accessibility to big data, and the need to be responsive to wicked problems such as economic inequality, climate change, violence, and conflict. Responsiveness to these challenges necessitates an understanding of co...