SAGE Journal Articles
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Abstract: Health and social care researchers, in their haste to ``belong'' to academia, have adopted the system of mixed methodology research, overestimating its ability to reveal the truth and occasionally imprisoning their thought in one system. In this article, some of the assumptions underpinning mixed methodology research and its discourse are subjected to an interrogative reading. Every reading is an act of criticism and every reader a critic. To read literature is to practice criticism, that is, to read one way and not another. Examples are given of writing regarding mixed methods research in health care from within the critical contexts of author—audience and literature—reality. The aim of the article is to examine the language used to represent mixed methods research within a particular context rather than focus on actual mixed methods research studies.
Abstract: Scholars have created a variety of typologies to describe and simplify mixed methods research designs. In this article, I review the rationale for using these typologies and discuss some shortcomings of the existing methods of classification. I argue that current systems of classification, although useful for simple and less fluid types of mixed methods research, are not capable of capturing the complexity and iterative nature of larger, more intricate research projects. I suggest an alternative way of viewing and describing mixed methods research for studies that resist simple classification. This alternative perspective shifts the unit of reference to the point of interface—where QUAL and QUAN data are integrated—and reduces the number of descriptive dimensions to two—the timing and the purpose of data integration.